


This Orient

by SpaceTeeth



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-13 18:28:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 73,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2160630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceTeeth/pseuds/SpaceTeeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the End of Time, the Doctor never regenerated, instead traveling with the Master, going slowly madder year after year. By now he's crazy enough to try to get Rose Tyler back. And crazy enough that he doesn't care about altering multiple universes to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
Later, she would reflect on why she didn't immediately know that something was terribly wrong.   
  
Maybe that sound, that familiar whirring sound she hadn't heard for three years, had erased all her self-preservation skills, hard-earned with years at Torchwood. Maybe the sight of that familiar coat flapping gently in the London breeze had stopped her brain along with her heart.  
  
But she hadn't thought, not at all. Instead she ran, as fast as she could, as fast as she had when she had travelled with him. She flew into his arms, her throat already full of grief and joy and ready to erupt into near-hysterical tears. She absorbed his aroma, wool coat and cloves and the unmistakeable tinge she'd learned was the odor of time itself. It smelled like ozone and new steel.  
  
He smelled the same as he always had. She squeezed him, her arms pulling his body against hers as hard as she was capable, and his arms squeezed back. He still hadn't said a word, and she pulled back slightly to look up at his face.  
  
His expression was heartbroken and absolutely overjoyed, all at once. Freckled, pale skin reflected the gloomy February light and his hair drooped over his forehead as he looked down at her. “Rose Tyler,” he intoned, and gave her his most joyful grin. And then she broke, tears rolling down her cheeks as though gravity weren't fast enough for their taste. There were so many things she wanted to say and needed to say, she couldn't figure out where to begin.  
  
There were so many things she needed to hear from him.  
  
He wiped her tears away with gentle fingertips and she swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Doctor - “ she managed to choke, before he put a finger to her lips. She closed her eyes, the burning behind her eyelids too strong to resist.  
  
He replaced his finger with his lips. She would have staggered backwards with surprise, but he held her, keeping her on balance and setting her back on her feet. His tongue begged entry to her mouth and she opened under him, shock turning to adrenaline turning to excitement and half a feeling of dread. He was cool and slick inside her and her brain skittered through her skull, drunk on pleasure. But the rising anxiety was still there.  
  
He had said he couldn't ever come get her. Not without ripping a hole in the universe.  
  
Rose pushed him away as her heart dropped into her stomach. They'd just started testing the Dimension Cannon a week ago. What if they'd done more damage than they thought?  
  
She barely had time to process the thought before he had her back in his arms again, his head lowered to try to kiss her. She put her hand on his chest. “Doctor — I can't believe I'm trying to stop you, but you have to listen to me!”  
  
His eyes were dark, the tilt to his head reminding her of how he looked when he got really angry at someone. Licking her lips, unable to resist looking at his when they'd just been mashing hers into her teeth, she went on. “How can you be here? Is it what we did?”  
  
He blinked at her and the movement cleared his eyes, making him look more like the Doctor she remembered. “Does it matter?”  
  
“Yes! We've been experimenting with this new technology, it's kind of a dimensional transporter, and we - “  
  
He shook his head intently. “It was nothing you did, Rose. I found a way back.”  
  
There was a strange rush of wind from the alleyway adjacent to where they were standing. Rose's hair blew and whirled in her face and the Doctor's eyes widened. He reached forward and seized her wrist. “We have to go now, Rose.”  
  
She hesitated briefly, but his grip was iron and insistent, and even after all this time she followed him on instinct. She allowed him to pull her into the alley and into his TARDIS, the blue box folded into a narrow space in the bricks just out of view of the street. He slammed the door shut behind them and immediately ran to the console, enacting the sequence she knew would take them into the Vortex. “Wait! We have to say goodbye to my mum. I can't just leave without saying a word to her!”  
  
“There's no time. If we don't go right now, we'll be stranded in this universe forever. The window I used to get through is about to close.” He continued navigating, his gaze not wavering from the controls.  
  
Rose clutched at the padded railing as the TARDIS lurched into another dimension. Her brain was still a few minutes behind her body; was it only ten minutes ago that she'd been on her way to a lunch meeting in her best office suit on a chilly winter day?  
  
He watched the screen intently for a moment, the smiled at her again. “We're through. We made it back to our universe.”  
  
She didn't know what to say, or what he wanted her to say. She was happy to see him again, so happy she could still feel the joy sizzling down her spine. Yet even by his previous standards, this was a more painful and abrupt separation from her family than she'd imagined. She hadn't made her first real run on the Dimension Cannon yet. She hadn't given them the letter she'd written, the one marked only to be opened if she didn't come back. They might think something really terrible had happened to her.  
  
The years had changed her, though. She was no longer the Rose Tyler that said exactly what came into her mind the minute it occurred to her. She had learned to obfuscate, to act a part, to bury her heart so deeply within her she knew it would take hard labor to uncover it. She licked her lips again and said, “Where are we going?”  
  
“Earth! London, 2015!” the Doctor said cheerily, and for the first time she could have pretended herself back with him, things the same as always between them.   
  
Things weren't the same. That much was obvious. He was acting strange enough to worry her, and he'd kissed her. Really kissed her, as though he meant to do more. Had seemed well on his way to doing more, when she'd pushed him away. And he'd never tried to drag her away from her mother, even when he was in leather. He'd always given her a choice before. He never would have just seized her and hauled her away without so much as a glance back or an explanation of danger.  
  
The TARDIS wheezed its way back into regular space before landing with a minor jolt. Rose made for the door, but before she reached the handle her wrist was caught again, yanking her back up the ramp. “What's the hurry?” the Doctor asked, pulling her against his body and clutching her tight. She could tell by his deep inhalation that he was smelling the back of her neck, or her hair. For some insane reason she felt a frisson of arousal flaring inside her.  
  
She stiffened, not liking the way her body kept reacting to him. It wasn't like her to have no control over her feelings, not anymore. And something about his sudden immutable interest in it, after his previous monk-like patterns, made her very uneasy. She had to get him to tell her what the hell was going on.  
  
The Doctor had plans of his own. He turned her around with his long, slender hands on her shoulders. Then he walked her backwards up the ramp and pushed her into the console, lifting her so that her arse rested precariously on the sloped edge. She shifted, feeling as though she was about to slide off the edge, until he positioned himself in front of her and so near she could feel his erection through his trousers.  
  
She wriggled against him, whether trying to get comfortable or escape, she wasn't sure. A tiny noise erupted from the back of his throat when she rubbed against his cock and she froze again. “Doctor, what is going on? Is something wrong?”  
  
He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time, his eyes meeting hers. The depth was there, the obvious age, the sadness and the loneliness that had always drawn her to him, even when the eyes were icy blue instead of warm brown. He touched her face again, his fingers grazing her temple before moving away. She felt another jolt of lust and when he brushed his lips against hers she had to resist the urge to grab the back of his head and hold him to her. His mouth found her neck instead, kissing his way down it as his fingers unbuttoned the top of her blouse.  
  
“Doctor, please. I can't just do this now. I need you to explain. You're...you're scaring me.”  
  
“Sex first, I'll explain later,” the Doctor insisted, and his hand found its way under her very professional pencil skirt and slid up the inside of her thigh.  
  
She tensed her muscles involuntarily. He noticed and withdrew his hand, touching her cheek instead. His body still pinned her to the console. His face was inches from hers. “Rose,” he murmured. “Don't you trust me? Haven't you always trusted me?”  
  
Her eyes slid closed and she shuddered. She didn't know what was going on, what was going to happen and it scared her. But with him between her thighs the _want_  was so viscerally strong it overrode the fear. In the end she did trust him. What choice did she have?  
  
As she sat motionless, she heard him unzip his trousers and the clothy slither as his trousers landed in a pile on the grated floor. He rucked her skirt up around her hips and nestled between her knees. His hand ducked between them and rubbed gently at her folds through her knickers, finding her wet enough that Rose felt slightly ashamed at it. “You were always wet around me,” he said into her ear. “I could smell it all the time.” His fingers slid her sopping knickers to one side. The head of his cock slipped into her and she gasped, her back arching in anticipation. He held back for a moment, his eyes focused on the place they were about to join. Then he pushed forward in one slow but relentless motion until he filled her completely.  
  
He stopped then, pressing his forehead to hers. His breath was hot in her face. “I knew you wanted me, and I wanted you too,” he confessed, his hands adjusting her hips on the console, sliding her slightly farther up. Then he pulled out and slammed back in, throwing her whole body backward with the force of his thrust. Some short, stubby knob dug into the small of her back, but the only thing emanating from her lips was a long moan. He thrust into her again, giving his hips a twist. Rose grabbed for the edge of the console, trying to find purchase to hold herself steady.  
  
His right hand had moved from holding her hip in place and it traced its way up her body, sliding down the top of her shirt and across her bra. He found her nipple through the soft cotton, pinching it hard and making her cry out. His hips were still slamming into hers, his thrusts powerful and relentless. She couldn't remember why she hadn't wanted to do this a few moments ago. The high-pitched, screamy noises filling the console room were all coming from her. There was nothing better than this. The knob behind her was digging painfully into her back now, but the discomfort only added to the intensity of what she was feeling. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Her hands found the back of his neck and pulled him closer, her lips seeking his and he slammed them down on hers. His rhythm didn't change until her hands slid upward into his hair and tugged, her nails grazing his scalp, the silky strands slipping through her sweaty fingers. Then he groaned into her mouth, his cock stuttering to an uneven beat while he tried to get ahold of himself.  
  
And then his hand found her temple, and she was adrift, floating in space. There was no body or self; no sex, no uncomfortable console on the undoubtedly miffed TARDIS.  
  
Something as ethereal and weightless as she grabbed her and dragged her back down.  
  
 _Rose. You have to let me in._  
  
She struggled, panicking, floundering in the space outside her own mind like a drowning swimmer.  
  
 _Rose. Let me in. Now._  
  
She almost wanted to but she couldn't. The uneasy mood that had been building in her from the moment he kissed her had come full circle and she was gone. Her neurons weren't firing properly. She was no longer in her body but her body fought hard, arching and pulling away from the Doctor with every bit of strength she had. One of her nails caught him across the face and he winced, letting go of her other hip to add to his grip on her temples.  
  
 _I'm so sorry._  
  
She felt a sharp pain echo across her mind, as though something inside her had broken, and then her orgasm took her, her whole body arching back off the console at such an extreme angle that her head slammed into the metal beneath her. Pleasure flared through her, up and down her nerves and through every organ, prickling her skin and speckling the backs of her eyelids gray and white. Then the white dots connected, and Rose lost consciousness.  
  
****  
  
The Doctor pulled his trousers back up and zipped himself safely away. Rose lay limp on the console. He judged it would be at least an hour or two until she woke up again. It would take her brain that long to process the shock he'd just given it. Non-telepaths weren't really meant to do what they'd just done.  
  
He picked her up, cradling her in his arms and inhaling the delicate smell of her, all mingled with the aroma of the sex they'd just had. She didn't smell just like herself anymore. She smelled of him too.  
  
He considered taking her to her old room, but it probably wasn't wise to put her where he couldn't keep an eye on her right now. He crossed the console room and set her in the jump seat, removing his jacket and folding it under her head for a pillow. She didn't stir.  
  
With that he strode back down the ramp and unlocked the TARDIS door. As he'd expected, the other man was waiting for him just outside. He stepped into bright summer sunshine, trying not to blink as his eyes adjusted. Never had the best eyes with this body, very finicky.  
  
“So is it done?” asked an eternally bored voice.  
  
“Yes,” he said simply.  
  
The Master pushed his own sunglasses up his face and gave the Doctor his best demented grin. “Now that you've got her, Doctor, what are we going to do with her?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
“ _We're_  not doing anything to her,” the Doctor said. “You've done quite enough.”  
  
“Oh please, I haven't touched a human in years. And here you are not wanting to share? Selfish.”  
  
The Doctor rolled his eyes. Fifty years of traveling with the Master, on and off, and he was more than a little tired of the man's stupid games. “We made a deal. You can ask me to fulfill the terms of our deal. If you touch Rose...Rose is not part of the deal.”  
  
“And what are you going to do about it? Kill me? I could plunder that little piece of ape six ways you've never even heard of and you wouldn't touch me.”  
  
Without remembering getting there, the Doctor had the Master pressed up against the TARDIS door, hand firmly around his throat. “There are worse things than dying, Master,” he said, his voice low.  
  
“Like what, what you did to the Family of Blood? Fairy-tale punishments? Oooh, how frightening. I've got no experience whatsoever escaping that sort of thing!”  
  
“You know what they used to do to men who interfered with a completed claim back in the Dark Ages.”  
  
The Master's eyes flickered and the Doctor realized he had succeeded at surprising him. “That won't work. Not with an ape. They don't have any telepathic ability, not the ones from her time.” From the certainty in his voice the Doctor ascertained that he must have tried it before, probably with Lucy. Poor Lucy, no wonder she'd been so addled towards the end.  
  
“It already has worked. I've bonded with her.”  
  
Now the man was grinning, damn him. “Really! This I've got to see. Back on Gallifrey they would have locked you both in cages and poked you until they figured out what went wrong!” Before the Doctor could stop him, he had reached behind and grabbed the door knob, pulling the door open and slipping out from under the Doctor's grip.  
  
He followed the other Time Lord into the TARDIS, feeling her unease at having the man who had violated her inside her again. It had been a long time ago, but what was time to a time machine? He soothed her gently with his thoughts. “They locked you in a cage on Gallifrey.”  
  
“Well, I never said I wasn't a freak too. Why else would we get along so well?”  
  
The Doctor came up the ramp and saw the blond man leaning over Rose, examining her without touching her. His hackles went up as he got closer and saw how close the Master's hands were to Rose's temples. One of the hands lowered itself, too slowly to be anything other than an attempt to annoy him. Nevertheless he strode over and slapped the hand away.  
  
“Now now, Doctor. I risked my TARDIS opening up a window to that universe so you could get your precious little primate back. Not to mention what you've done to the proper timelines. Our friends in the Council would be just appalled. Good thing you killed them all, isn't it?”  
  
The Doctor made a face at him. “Are you ever going to stop going on about that?”  
  
A soft moan from the jump seat cut off whatever the Master had been about to say. The Doctor frowned. She shouldn't be awake yet. At a minimum he'd planned on ejecting the Master back to his own TARDIS before she woke. Explaining what he'd just done to her was going to be awkward enough without his quasi-nemesis skulking around smirking.  
  
“Doctor?”  
  
He knelt next to her on the metal grating, ignoring the pain in his knees. “I'm here, Rose.”  
  
Her eyes turned slowly to find him. They were barely open, only the barest hint of whiskey brown showing through her lids. “Hurts,” she whispered.  
  
“What hurts? Your head?”  
  
She gave a brief nod before closing her eyes again. His frown grew deeper. Maybe she'd woken up too early and the link hadn't settled yet. He touched her temples and closed his eyes, probing the connection between them. It seemed secure, but he could feel her pain radiating across it. She had a nasty headache, but he couldn't see anything actually wrong with her brain. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised it was painful. She was doing something her species wouldn't evolve capabilities for for several thousand more years.  
  
As he pushed her back towards sleep and opened his eyes, he heard the Master. “Can't be too surprised she's in pain, you've done something unnatural to the poor girl.”  
  
The Doctor rubbed his own temples, trying to clear away the lingering ache. “Unnatural? Like you've got room to talk. At least I've never transformed every human being on earth into a copy of myself.”  
  
“That wasn't unnatural, it was a massive evolutionary step forward for a primitive species. Just think, if I'd succeeded, you never would have soiled yourself with that little ape.”  
  
“You're the biggest hypocrite in the universe, if not the multi-verse.”  
  
“Hypocrisy isn't a problem when you don't have a bucketful of pathetic little morals guiding you.”  
  
The Doctor tuned him out, staring at the woman asleep on the jump seat. It had been a long time since he'd felt particularly moral. Things had changed that day on Mars and he'd only gone further down the rabbit hole after the Master came on board. Of course, now he had effectively ended that timeline before Mars had even happened. It wasn't hard to convince himself it was for the best. Donna was safe. The meta-crisis had never happened and Rose was here, back in his arms once again.  
  
“What's so special about this one, then? They've all loved you. She's just a little girl. No education or credentials to speak of. She's not even a real blonde.”  
  
Strangely, with the Master's words the Doctor felt a smile come to his face. “She's Rose. That's all.”  
  
The Master smirked. “I know why you really like her.”  
  
“Oh, do you?”  
  
“It's that power. The Vortex itself! You can sense it, can't you? Trapped inside her tiny ape brain, all bottled up and just waiting to come out. It makes me want to crack her open like an egg and see what's inside. What did you do to her?”  
  
The Doctor looked down at the little pink and yellow human sleeping on his jump seat. “I didn't do it,” he said, and even the Master could hear the pain in his voice. “She did it to herself. I couldn't save her. I still can't. All I can do is keep her here, by my side. And that's what I'm going to do, and you're not going to interfere, or I will make you regret it.”  
  
****  
  
Rose woke abruptly, still feeling as though the Doctor was on top of her. Adrenaline shot through her and she scrambled upright before opening her eyes and realizing nobody was in the room with her. She winced, raising a hand to her head, which ached fiercely.  
  
As her head cleared, she frowned. She didn't know what in the universe had just happened, or when the Doctor had turned into some sort of sex-maniac. She'd have liked a little sex mania back before they were separated, but now it was just confusing. Not to mention she wasn't entirely pleased by how pushy he'd been. He'd always been hot and cold, but this was just ridiculous. He wasn't even here now to speak to her. He'd brought her in here and left her alone.  
  
She rolled out of the bed and promptly stepped on a pile of dirty laundry. It was then she realized she was in her old room, pink duvet and piles of unwashed clothing still exactly where she'd left them. It had been almost four long years for her. How long had it been for the Doctor? There wasn't any dust, but she couldn't remember ever seeing dust in the TARDIS.  
  
Stumbling toward the bathroom, she noticed she was wearing a pajama top and shorts. So he'd changed her clothes too.  
  
She emptied her bladder and then struck out for the console room, trusting her memory to guide her in the right direction. After a moment she arrived in the familiar green-lit room, smiling fondly at the console and the coral struts. She stroked the coral lightly, feeling the familiar pleasant hum echo through her skull. The TARDIS was just as pleased to see her as she was to see the old time ship. She wished it was under less disturbing circumstances and the TARDIS hummed a tone she took to mean agreement.  
  
At first she didn't see the Doctor; then she realized he had crawled into one of the service hatches to tinker. She could only see his Chuck-clad feet poking out and she almost smiled. How could things be so right and so wrong at the same time?  
  
His senses were such that she was certain he knew she was there, but he stayed in the hatch, metallic noises echoing up into the console room. She shrugged and sat down on the jump seat. She had always been able to outwait him before. For a man who lived hundreds of years, he never had much patience.  
  
After a few more minutes she touched the coral behind her and thought about how annoyed she was with him. There was a blue flash and a muffled curse and then the Doctor came crawling awkwardly backwards towards her. She crossed her arms. At least the TARDIS was on her side.  
  
“So what have you got to say for yourself?” she demanded, wincing as she realized she sounded exactly like her mother.  
  
He rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding looking her in the eye. “What do you want me to say?”  
  
“Oh no,” she snapped. “We're not going down that road. I want to know exactly how you showed up in the other universe when you told me you couldn't, and why you practically raped me on the console, and what the hell you did to my head, which, I might add, still feels like I went on a weeklong bender!”  
  
He had flinched when she said rape, but otherwise, he held steady. “It's a long story, Rose.”  
  
She held out her hands. “We're in a time machine, since you've apparently forgotten. We're in the Vortex. Tell me what I want to know, or you can take me home right now.”  
  
“You can't go home, Rose. I already told you that.”  
  
“Yeah, you took me away from my mother and brother forever, I know that much. You can still take me home to Earth in 2015 or wherever you lied about us going before.”  
  
His mouth was open. “I didn't - “  
  
“No! No putting me off, no lying! Tell me right now or take me home!”  
  
She had forgotten during their time apart how fast he could move. He was inches away from her before she could blink. “You're never going home, Rose,” he hissed into her face.  
  
“And why is that?”  
  
“You're mine. You belong to me now. That's why I  _raped_  you on the console. That's why your head hurts. You will never leave me, whether you want to or not.”  
  
All the anger had drained from her, replaced by fear. She stared at him, this monster in a body that had once housed her Doctor. Was it wrong that she still loved him? Could you fear someone and love them too? He'd done monstrous things before she knew him, and she had loved him anyway. Would it be different now? Trying to cover the tremor of fear in her hand, she touched his face. “What happened to you?”  
  
He melted under her touch, the aggression draining from his body, his shoulders slumping as he sank to his knees on the grating. As ever, he answered a different question than the one she'd asked. “It's an old Gallifreyan thing. I...claimed you. Telepathically. It's...you might call it a form of marriage. Never practiced by my time.”  
  
Marriage? He really had lost it. Her Doctor never would have wanted to be tied down to an ape. For all she'd known he loved her in his way, he had always made that clear. “And why would you do something like that? Without asking me?”  
  
His eyes flicked to the TARDIS door before finding her again. “Back before the Time War, we used to be able to travel back and forth between the dimensions. But we needed more than one Time Lord, and more than one TARDIS to do it. That's why I couldn't get to you before.”  
  
She frowned at him. “Are you telling me there's another Time Lord out there?”  
  
He leaned into her hand, his eyes closed. “Yes. And he's mad, Rose. Always has been. I needed his help to get you, but if he got his hands on you...he would do terrible things. I couldn't let that happen. Now that I've claimed you, he can't touch you. When you tried to go outside, I knew he was there. I couldn't let you walk into that without protecting you first.”  
  
“Protecting me? Just how bad is this guy?”  
  
“He's not as bad as he was, years ago. But he likes to play games and he doesn't care how many lives he ruins doing it.”  
  
“And he's the only other Time Lord? You didn't find some cache of them hidden away somewhere?”  
  
“Well, I suppose him still being alive proves I can't be sure they're all dead. But there's no sign of any others. We would know.”  
  
“Right, telepathy,” she muttered. “So what does this claim thing mean, for me? For you?”  
  
He got that flinty look on his face, the one he always had when he didn't want to tell her something. He hadn't changed that much. “I don't really exactly know.”  
  
Now she was angry again. “What the hell do you mean you don't know? How could you do something like that to me and not know what the consequences were?”  
  
“When do I ever think of the consequences?” he asked.  
  
She almost laughed, set off guard by his unexpected honesty. “Doctor.”  
  
He rubbed the back of his neck again. “The history of Gallifrey and our species is...spotty at best. When Rassilon took over and engineered the Time Lords, the old ways were thrown out. Some things became legend, where others were suppressed entirely. Breeding and bonding were in that category. There's almost no information about how it was done before Rassilon. I have one book in my library here that describes the types of bonding done back then, but it's skimpy on detail. I thought I might be able to form the most basic kind of bond with you. I wasn't sure it would work, but it seems to have. I can feel you in my head now.”  
  
She frowned. “Why can't I feel you, then?”  
  
“I guess because you're not a telepath. Humans from your century don't have the brain capacity for telepathy yet.”  
  
“That seems awfully unfair. You get to see into my head, and I don't get to see into yours?”  
  
He let out a strangled chuckle. “You don't want to know what's in this daft old head.”  
  
Rose tried to think this through. None of this made any sense to her, and it was so hard to think straight with her head aching so badly. He had given her some of the information she wanted, but there was something big missing in what he was telling her, she was sure of that. Some important detail he was leaving out. Like the time they went to Kasman 7 and he neglected to mention that “breeding season” meant she would be repeatedly accosted by amorous houseplants. She'd nearly been smothered by a hydrangea before he fought the thing off with his sonic. Knowing him, he might never give her the whole truth. She sighed. “Just tell me one thing, Doctor.”  
  
He raised an eyebrow expectantly.  
  
“Can your med bay get rid of this horrible headache you've given me?” And explain why my head still hurts at all, she thought sourly. He'd been in her head a few times before in their years together. It had never felt like this, this constant pressure on her brain like someone was pressing on it with a trowel.  
  
“We can try,” he said, giving her his grin for the first time since she'd woken up as he jumped to his feet. “Allons-y!”  
  
****  
  
He ran the scanner over her head and frowned at the results on the screen. “This isn't telling me anything useful. May I...” he gestured to her temples.  
  
She shifted uncomfortably on the thin, cold mattress. She wasn't entirely happy about the idea of letting him in her mind again, but what choice did she have? “Okay.”  
  
The Doctor pulled a chair beside her, sat down and gently touched the sides of her face, letting his fingers migrate to her temples. His eyes slid shut and she took the opportunity to study his face. If she hadn't known better, she could have believed it was only yesterday he'd left her on that freezing beach. He looked exactly the same, his pale skin lightly spattered with tiny freckles. The creases around the edges of his eyes were relaxed, making him look even younger than he usually did. His hair was as gorgeous and unruly as ever.  
  
She flinched as she felt him abruptly pressing against the bubble of her thoughts, the pain intensifying as he tried to enter her mind. “Oh God, stop!”  
  
He didn't, leaving his hands in place. “Rose, calm down. I can't find out what's wrong if you don't let me in.”  
  
“I can't! It hurts, Doctor, it hurts!” She lay back on the examining table, trying to get out of his grasp, but he followed her down. She could feel him tracing the edges of her mind, looking for a way in. Every touch of his mind on hers was like a hot poker jabbing at her brain. It was everything she could do not to scream. Instead she sobbed aloud, which only seemed to make the Doctor want to redouble his efforts. She thrashed and he lunged onto the medical bay bed with her, pinning her with his body.  
  
He couldn't pin her and her hands both and she slapped at him, wanting him off, wanting him out. One of her hands brushed against his temple and the pain level suddenly lessened. Gasping, she grabbed the other side of his face with her other hand and closed her eyes.  
  
“Rose, what are you - “ before he could finish his sentence she was inside his head and he moaned. She didn't know how she'd done it once it was done. It was as though she'd stepped off a cliff and arrived inside the Doctor. Her body relaxed underneath his, the ache inside her skull vanishing entirely. The blockage to her mind disappeared and their consciousness merged fully for the first time. A bright light enveloped them both as the link between them was completed, and made permanent.


	3. Chapter 3

  
Rose was outside her mind again, but this time there was no dizzying anxiety or sense of emptiness. This time the Doctor was there with her, standing next to her holding her hand. The familiar warm pressure of his fingers wrapped around hers radiated contentment, flowing warm and silky through her. She was also wearing her old, equally familiar jeans and hoodie, long since abandoned in her life in the parallel universe.  
  
“Where are we?” she asked. “This is some kind of metaphor or something, right?”  
  
He gave her a pleased grin. “That's right! I don't know how you knew how to do it, but I think we have a full bond. You claimed me, just as I claimed you. I didn't think it was possible, but here we are. Having a little meeting inside our minds.”  
  
“I was here before.”  
  
“Were you? When we...” he appeared to ponder for a moment, as though his voluminous vocabulary had overwhelmed him. “...had sex on the console? I say had sex, should I say made love? It was a bit rushed for that, so maybe not. There are so many words, really, good words like fucking and coupling and shagging! Sleeping together, well that just wouldn't be accurate. You were the only one who slept. Oh, and making the beast with two backs, what an image!”  
  
She rolled her eyes, but couldn't resist smiling, her lips curling up despite herself. “Why is it an airport?”  
  
“It's your brain, why don't you tell me?” He looked up, scanning the signage and wrinkling his forehead with a frown. He pulled out his glasses and perched them on his nose. She looked around, not having noticed much about her surroundings in her previous panic.  
  
They were in what appeared to be a long hallway, with a moving walkway down the center. A huge arc of of paned glass, end to end on the hallway, showed a cloudy yet bright sky a uniform shade of white. Two exits at either end were misty and gray, the shapes within them indistinct. One appeared to lead off into a small opening with its simple door shut, bright yellow light seeping out around the edges of the frame. The other was a huge archway whose interior was pitch black. There were signs hanging overhead, which along with the moving walkway were what had reminded her of an airport. The signs were in a language she recognized from the TARDIS. The little swirls and circles the Doctor used for all his notes. He had told her it was his native language, and that he was the last living speaker.   
  
“I'm not quite sure I'd call it an airport. Some sort of passageway. We have to choose which way to go. Your mind, or mine?” He waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed. “Oh, I missed that laugh,” the Doctor said, and the darkness had returned to his eyes.  
  
Her breath hitched as arousal shot through her. Some of it was her own — she would recognize that throb at the seam of her jeans anytime — but some of it was strange, tendrils of unfamiliar sensation creeping down her spine. Her eyes widened. “Am I feeling your -”  
  
He hesitated for a moment, his expression downright predatory, and she wondered if it was actually possible to have sex while you were outside of your body, because she was pretty sure he was going to lay her down right here. Or maybe pick her up. She'd never done it up against a wall before, but she bet the Doctor was strong enough to hold her in the air. She heard his strangled groan and she knew he could feel her surging hormones just as she could feel his. Then he grabbed her by the hand and said, “Let's get out of here.” He spun them around and behind them was another door, this one with a push-bar and a glowing red EXIT sign. She closed her eyes against the sting of adjustment as they rushed out into the cloudy daylight.  
  
When she opened them again, she was flat on her back in the med bay. The Doctor was still above her, his weight pushing her into the thin mattress, his eyes wide and dark. There was something like awe on his face. “Rose Tyler,” he whispered, his fingers tracing her lips. “How are you possible? You brilliant, precious thing.”  
  
Before she could respond, he captured her mouth with his, his lips easing hers open to allow his tongue access. She whimpered as the lust their previous connection had banked inside her ignited. He let out another one of those little noises from the back of his throat.  
  
His fingers slid down her body, so lightly she almost didn't notice, and within seconds he had broken the kiss and had her shorts hanging off one ankle. He hadn't put knickers on her when he'd dressed her before. Subtle, that, she thought wryly. Then her brain and body finally got over the intense shock of being kissed by the Doctor and she leaned forward to help, attempting to unbutton his trousers.  
  
He shoved her back into the narrow mattress with his full weight, using her surprised flinch as an opportunity to grab both her hands and trap them up above her head. He didn't say a word, but Rose got the message. She relaxed underneath him. She didn't understand what was happening between them, but she knew deep in her marrow that he could not hurt her now. She was a part of him, and he a part of her. Hurting her would damage him as much or more.  
  
He yanked her shirt roughly over her head and then went to work on his own clothing. She watched as his skin appeared, first the flat planes of his abdomen, then his chest, spattered with hair and freckles. Then he shed his trousers and she suddenly understood why she was still sore from their console romp the day before. He crept down between her legs, examining her closely before he used his fingers to open her folds. His fingers were cold and she shivered. He looked up at her and their eyes locked. Then he licked her, and his tongue was agile and warm, the contrast to his hands especially startling in the most sensitive part of her body. He traced the edges of her clitoris before dipping down to her opening and indulging his oral fixation there. As he took his tongue back to her clit, two fingers slid inside her with ease, stretching her still slightly aching walls and rubbing lightly just where she wanted it most.  
  
Her orgasm came on her with dizzying speed and she choked out a scream, her body tensing under him and then arching into him. He pushed her hips back down with his free hand and slowly gentled his touch. His eyes never left her face.  
  
When her shudders subsided he crawled back up her body, kissing her again and allowing her to sample her own taste mingled with his. He grabbed her leg and pulled it to his waist. She allowed the other leg to drop limply to her other side. With one smooth motion he slid inside her and she sighed. Her heel dug into the small of his back, urging him on. He wouldn't allow himself to be rushed, his strokes steady and moderately paced. He was still studying her face intently, as though he was memorizing her reactions.  
  
“You can come for me again,” he told her.  
  
She nodded, too breathless to speak. There was no doubt about that. She wondered if she was allowed to touch him now, and her hands wandered upward to caress his shoulders. His skin was cool and smooth under her fingers and she scratched him lightly with her nails. He groaned and broke eye contact, burying his face in her neck. “Oh Rose,” he murmured. “How did I ever leave you behind?”  
  
Through the haze of desire she frowned. “You didn't. It wasn't your fault.”  
  
There was a snort from several feet away, and both Rose and the Doctor immediately turned to the source of the noise. Their hips, which had been moving so pleasantly toward their ultimate union, stuttered to a halt.   
  
A blond man, dressed in a black suit with no tie, leaned against the open med bay door. “Oh, please! Is this how it's going to be from now on? Running into you two shagging on every available flat surface? Because if so I'd really prefer it if you just threw me out the airlock now.”  
  
“The TARDIS doesn't have an airlock,” the Doctor muttered as he rolled off her. “Do you mind? We were busy.”  
  
“You didn't shut the door. I figured you must want company.”  
  
Rose grabbed the sheet and pulled it over her breasts and belly. The blond man smirked and she looked down, noticing that the fabric was so sheer her nipples were still visible. The only solution was to copy the Doctor and start getting dressed. She grabbed her shorts and top off the ground and looked for her knickers before remembering the Doctor hadn't put any on her. “Is that - “  
  
The Doctor had already pulled his trousers back up. “Yes. That's him.”  
  
She realized she could sense him too, much more distantly than the Doctor, but he was there at the back of her mind. There was a kind of malignancy to his presence, both mentally and bodily. Like he was a pet tiger, leashed and harnessed but always waiting, poised to strike when and where he could. He nodded his head toward her. “He likes to be called 'The Master,'” he said, his voice disarmingly cheerful.  
  
“The Master? I thought the Doctor was bad enough.”  
  
“Oi!” the Doctor protested.  
  
“Can he just come in here any time he wants?” Rose asked.  
  
“He goes wherever he pleases, for the most part,” the Master said.  
  
The Doctor winced. “It's complicated.”  
  
Rose rolled her eyes. “How many times am I going to hear that today?”  
  
“What he means, you dear little power-vector, is that he's tied me to his ship so I can't run off and harm anyone.”  
  
“I thought you said he had his own TARDIS,” Rose said.  
  
“He does,” the Master replied, happily continuing the conversation in the third person. “Said TARDIS is not fully grown, however, and needs to be … boosted by this TARDIS in order to be able to go anywhere.”  
  
She snorted. “Why does that mean you can just walk in, whenever and wherever you like?”  
  
“If you think I'm violating your boyfriend's modesty, you needn't worry. I've seen it all before.”  
  
Rose looked at the Master, still half-inside the door, before looking back to the Doctor, who by the expression on his face would rather be facing a horde of Daleks than continue this line of discussion. She cleared her throat. “Doctor, aren't you going to properly introduce us? You know, now that we're...clothed?”  
  
He gave her an incredulous look, and then said, almost as though he considered it a joke, “Rose, Master. Master, Rose.” Then he seemed to realize he still wasn't wearing his shirt, and he spun around, examining the floor for evidence of where it might have landed.  
  
The Master stuck out his hand and offered her a fake grin that reminded her of politicians, all teeth and no eyes. She'd met enough of them during her time at Torchwood and as Pete Tyler's daughter to recognize them a mile away. “Rose Tyler, heard so much about you.”  
  
“I can't really say the same about you,” she responded warily, ignoring the proffered handshake.   
  
“Well, the Doctor thought he'd killed me. I suppose I didn't really stand out in the legion of corpses.”  
  
“Actually, I thought you died at Arcadia,” the Doctor said quietly, having found his henley and pulled it over his head. The buttons were somewhat mangled. He looked at them instead of either of his companions.  
  
Rose and the Master both looked at the Doctor. Rose recognized the haunted expression that had been characteristic on the first him, and had never quite disappeared from the second. “Did that make it easier for you?” the Master asked, and his voice had lost most of its malevolently manic glee.  
  
The Doctor still wouldn't look at them. “A little,” he admitted.  
  
She knew they were discussing the end of the Time War. She remembered her first Doctor's violent reaction on seeing the surviving Dalek in that bunker in Utah. The memory was still vivid after several years, the anguish and rage on his angular face stamped into her consciousness forever. That was the first time she had really understood how damaged her Doctor was. She had known then that he needed her, and that she would never willingly leave him.  
  
She watched him talk to the last surviving member of his species, the only one he hadn't killed. His friend and his enemy both, it seemed. Who was this Master, and what had he done all those years ago? The Doctor had never mentioned him to her, but he had never spoken much about the Time Lords, other than to tell her they'd been stodgy and snobby and hadn't much liked his habit of befriending lesser species. The Master didn't seem stodgy but he certainly liked to make cutting remarks, and was even worse with oblique references to things she didn't understand than the Doctor.  
  
The Master seemed to sense her looking at him and he whipped his head around to peer back at her. Then he smiled and his eyes narrowed slightly. Rose felt the dim presence in the back of her mind strengthen and lashed out instinctively in fear. He winced and rubbed at his temples, his smile gone. His expression wasn't quite menacing. She felt the pressure at the back of her mind again and struck back stronger than before.  
  
****  
  
The Doctor felt a flicker, almost like a firecracker had gone off at the back of his skull. He finished with the last button on his shirt and realized that the Master and Rose were engaging in a staring contest. Was he trying to hypnotize her? His stare was unrelenting, but the Doctor could see his lip was quivering ever so slightly. The old history book in the TARDIS library had claimed any male who tried to probe the consciousness of another male's bond-mate would experience unrelenting, excruciating pain during the contact and for some time afterwards.  
  
He was almost tempted to let them continue, just to see what would happen, but he was afraid of what Rose might do if the Master did manage to connect them. She didn't know her own mental strength, he was quite certain of that after his time inside her mind. He had seen what was still inside her but she had seemed oblivious to that golden glow, hidden away at the back of her mind. He could lose them both if the Master pushed too hard.  
  
“What do you want, Master?” he asked sharply.  
  
The Master didn't break his stare with Rose. “You know what I want. I helped you get to that parallel universe where you trapped your pet, and now you've retrieved her. Now it's time for you to fulfill your end of the bargain.”  
  
“No. Not yet. Your TARDIS needs more time.”  
  
Rose stiffened and made a strange noise. The Doctor closed his eyes and probed the link between him and Rose. The Master was there, poking about at the edges of Rose's mind even though he'd thought it impossible. The Master had always been expert at invading people's minds, but the Doctor hadn't expected him to so easily take advantage of the newly carved pathways into Rose's psyche.  
  
Damn that history of Gallifrey and its spotty accuracy. The Doctor could still use their link for the other purpose he had in mind, but it clearly wasn't going to keep her safe from the Master and his lifelong lust for power. It had to be hurting him, causing him agonizing pain, but it wasn't enough to keep him away from her. The lure of her power was too strong, or maybe the Master had decided that hurting the Doctor by proxy was the game of the day. He was being an even bigger fool than usual. They had both seen what had happened in the parallel universe, before they'd decided to rewrite time.  
  
Rose was fighting him off. He could feel her mind sparking and buzzing as though protected by an electrified fence. He opened his eyes and realized Rose's face had begun to glow a soft yellow. Then, abruptly, her eyes glazed over and her knees buckled. The Doctor moved as fast as he could and caught her just as she keeled over. He wrapped an arm around her waist and kept her upright.  
  
“What the hell do you think you're doing?” he snarled at the Master. “You saw what she's capable of. Why are you subjecting yourself to that pain? Do you want her to kill you?”  
  
“It's so...intriguing in there. I know you can feel it, Doctor. All that knowledge, all that power, buried away at the bottom of that junk heap of a human brain. How can I resist poking at it? I don't think she'll kill me, too much empathy in that one. She loves you, and she won't hurt me because it would hurt you.”  
  
The Doctor opened his mouth to form an indignant response when Rose stirred in his arms. She stumbled a bit, finding her balance, and then her eyes found the Doctor's. Specks of gold glowed in the brown depths. “What is he doing?” she murmured. “I can feel him. I push him away, but he comes back.”  
  
“Don't worry about him,” the Doctor said gently. “We're going to work on your shields, then you should be able to keep him out.”  
  
“I could hurt him,” she said, and the Doctor knew then he wasn't really talking to Rose anymore.  
  
“Yes, you could. Easily. Do you want to?”  
  
She looked at the Master, then at the Doctor. “You don't want me to.”  
  
“No,” he admitted. “He is the last of us. I need him.”  
  
The Master scoffed in the background, but didn't interrupt.  
  
“He can't really hurt you, Rose. Our bond protects you. Can you relax?”  
  
Her eyes were back to the Master. “The universe might be improved by his absence. There would be less uncertainty in the timelines.”  
  
“You can't make those choices, Rose.”  
  
She looked at him, a wisp of gold escaping from her irises. “You do. Why not me?”  
  
He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to focus on his eyes. “Because, Rose Tyler, whatever is inside you, you are a better person than I ever have been or ever will be. Neither the Master nor I is worthy of your consideration, or your interference. You do not need to lower yourself to our level.”  
  
She seemed to consider this. Then her eyes unfocused and a look of anguish crossed her features. “Oh, Doctor. What have you done?”  
  
“What do you mean?” There were so many things, was he supposed to pick one?  
  
She gave him the saddest smile he'd ever seen from her, then her eyes rolled back into her head and her mouth fell open. Another wisp of gold evaporated into the air and the Doctor caught her again. He reached into his pocket for his sonic and scanned her. She was fine, physically. She had let go of the Bad Wolf, or maybe it had let go of her. He hesitated, then touched her temple. Their link roared to life with the force of a tsunami and he staggered under its weight. All her very rudimentary shields were down, the swirling maelstrom of time surging through her. It wasn't like his last moments in his ninth body, when she had merged with the TARDIS itself. This was merely a door left open and like the hatch on a boat the liquid of time and space pushed its way through. As quickly as he could, he slammed his own shields in front of Rose's simple door. Her body jerked in his arms and she exhaled a small cloud of golden light. The vortex energy in her mind receded. The Doctor sighed with relief.  
  
The Master was still in the med bay with them, staring at Rose like he was at an elaborate dinner and she was the main course. He must have gotten some sense of what had just happened. No Time Lord could fail to sense the energy coursing through Rose's mind. “You have no idea what I'd give to get in that little brain properly right now.”  
  
His anger seared through him, his emotions off-kilter because of the link. “Don't even think it,” he snapped.   
  
“Oh, I'm thinking it.”  
  
“Get out,” the Doctor said. “You could have killed Rose, interfering with her shields like that. A large part of me thinks I should rip you limb from limb. You spend much more time in this room and I'm not going to hold myself responsible for what I do to you. If you touch Rose again, I will destroy your TARDIS.”


	4. Chapter 4

  
  
The Doctor watched coolly as the Master left. The man certainly liked to play with fire, but then he always had, even when they were children together. He had been a little mad for as long as the Doctor could remember. This time it might get him killed for good and the Doctor wouldn't be able to stop it. The sheer force of the Time Vortex in her mind had almost overwhelmed him, yet she lived with it seeming unharmed. She should be dead, long dead. She was impossible.  
  
Rose was stirring in his arms and when he touched her face their link flared. She jerked awake, stumbling as she tried to find her feet. He held her steady and she clung to him. He could feel her breasts against his chest and his cock twitched, reminding him of what the Master had walked in on. He could smell the background aroma of her arousal. He forced the feeling away, out of his thoughts, but he couldn't quite keep it from slipping back through the cracks to torment him with her pressed against him like that. Their link flared again and he gasped and backed away from her. She almost lost her balance before steadying herself, giving him a puzzled look.  
  
“Doctor? What happened?”  
  
He looked at her face, wanting to plunder that mouth with his tongue, and maybe his cock too. They hadn't done that yet. Would she? Did she do that? Oh yes, she did, he'd rummaged through some of her sex fantasies during the formation of their link. He'd never had that before but he wanted it. He wanted those full, wide lips of hers wrapped around his cock. He wanted -   
  
He managed to say, “The Master tried to interfere with our link.” A half-truth was the most effective kind of lie.  
  
She frowned, her brown eyes thoughtful, and touched her head gingerly. “Did he try to get into my mind like...you got into my mind?  
  
The Doctor grunted a noise that he hoped she would register as a “yes”. He wanted her so badly, wanted to shove her up against the wall and fuck her senseless. He wanted to grab on to the tendrils of their link and stroke them, light up the pleasure centers in both their brains. He wanted to look at more of her thoughts and memories and let her emotions sink in to him like like gentle waves absorbed into the ocean. Then there was that power in her head, the Vortex locked away in a pretty golden package. No matter what he told the Master, the temptation was there for him too. What would he see, if he touched that power? What would he become? A monster? A god?  
  
He didn't understand, no matter how many times he reviewed his memories, how she could have spent more than a year with him with that power inside her and he never sensed it. He'd removed it all back when he had big ears and a leather jacket, sent it back to the TARDIS with his dying breath. He'd never noticed it when they'd been reunited on board the Dalek Crucible, either. Perhaps the Daleks had; they'd imprisoned her in the same kind of force-field they'd used on him. Then he'd locked her away in the parallel universe with his clone and tried to put her out of his mind for the next fifty years. Why hadn't he sensed what a mistake that would turn out to be?  
  
And how much did Rose really know about the presence in her mind? She hadn't said a word. He realized that she really had changed during their years apart. He doubted the teenage Rose he'd known before would have let any of this go as long as she had. This Rose was biding her time. He groaned inwardly as he realized that the game she played was actually turning him on even more. He'd never been able to resist mysterious women.  
  
“Doctor? Doctor?” Had she said his name several times and he hadn't noticed? “I'm going to go take a shower, okay?”  
  
He blinked twice. “I'll come with you. You could pass out again, don't want you hitting your head on the shower floor.” Did his voice sound squeaky?  
  
Now she looked concerned. “Are you okay, Doctor?”  
  
“Me? I'm alright. I'm always alright.”  
  
She gave him a dark look, which only turned him on all the more. Then she turned and walked away.  
  
When she turned into the corridor he sagged as the uncontrollable arousal let up a bit. He could still sense her in his mind. He still wanted her, body and mind. Where had his control gone? Did he care?  
  
“Doctor? Are you coming?” her voice echoed from down the hall.  
  
His whole body twitched and then he remembered that he needed to keep an eye on her in the shower. That was only half a lie too.   
  
He followed her to her private bath, stepping over the piles of clothes on the floor of her bedroom to get there. His lips curled into a smile. He had come here often during the first years after they'd been separated. When the Master arrived he'd locked it away, not wanting the other man to find it, and it had remained untouched, a shrine to the little human girl he'd loved and lost.  
  
He could hear the water pouring from the shower head as he reached the bathroom door. It being the TARDIS shower, Rose didn't have to wait for the water to warm, and she was already halfway inside. He caught a glimpse of her shapely arse and thigh before she pulled the shower door shut behind her.   
  
The hiss of the water changed its note slightly as Rose moved, the spray of tiny water droplets into the air above the stall shifting. He caught his breath as she moved back in front of the glass door, the fogged glass barely concealing her naked form.  
  
Before he could register what he was doing his shoes and shirt were somewhere off to his right while he tugged his trousers down. Three strides brought him across the bathroom and he opened the shower door and slid inside.  
  
When he brushed his cool, dry body against her warm, slickly wet one she shivered and turned to face him. “Doctor,” she said simply, and there was no surprise in her tone.  
  
“There was something we never got to finish,” he said. He backed her against the shower wall and kissed her fiercely, the water soaking his hair and dripping down on to her face. He ignored the warm drops, his thin lips forcing hers open. For a moment she didn't respond, and he could sense the swirl of her emotions — reluctance, exhaustion, fear, but above all desire. He wondered which one would win out and got his answer when she slid her tongue against his.  
  
His hands flowed down her body with the water. He brushed her nipples with his thumbs, teasing them to prominence. Then his hands slid further down, finding her wet and ready for him. He kissed her harder and pressed his body against hers before releasing her mouth.   
  
“Turn around,” he murmured into her ear.  
  
She nodded and complied, her hands pressed flat against the cream-colored wall tile. He pulled her hips backwards toward him so that she was slightly bent at the middle and used his feet to nudge her legs far enough apart for him to fit between them. He had a perfect view of her arse, muscle into curves, from this angle and he couldn't resist squeezing it. She arched towards him, pushing into his hands. He fondled his cock before sliding inside her in one smooth thrust.  
  
Rose let out a long moan as he stayed seated inside her for a moment, the heat inside her almost intolerable. His fingers curled and dug into her hips. Then he pulled back and slammed into her. Her wet hair flew forward but her body stayed in place, braced against the wall.  
  
“Do you know how long I've waited for this?” he murmured, leaning forward to nip the back of her neck. “How many times I pictured it? Imagined I was inside you?”  
  
She didn't respond, letting out a whimper as he picked up his pace. He could feel her arousal growing, cascading toward her release like a series of streams feeding into a river. “And now you're mine, Rose Tyler. I can have you whenever I like, but it's not enough. It will never be enough.” He spoke slowly, punctuating each word with a forceful thrust. “I want all of you.”  
  
He could feel her mind coalescing as she tried to find words, struggling through the waves of desire and pleasure toward coherency. “Doctor, I - “  
  
“What, Rose? Haven't I fucked the words out of you yet?” He leaned forward, changing the angle of penetration and forcing her even further down his cock.  
  
His own climax was approaching and he slid his fingers down between her legs, playing with the wet curls for a moment before circling her clit. Her hips jerked and she let out a low moan. He could feel her muscles clenching on him and pressed hard, his finger sliding easily as her moan turned into a scream. He thrust harder and she made an inhuman noise and then his own climax was on him.  
  
He panted heavily, still inside her while the world came back to him. The water was still cascading down behind them, and he pulled out and used it to rinse his softening cock. He winced as the water hit the sensitive flesh but if he didn't clean off he'd be smelling her all day and he didn't think he'd ever let her out of bed. There were too many things to do and calculations to make for him to spend all his time on sex. No matter how good sex with humans had turned out to be. No wonder they were so popular, later on in their history.   
  
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rose pull away from the shower wall and wipe her wet hair out of her eyes. She was giving him an indecipherable look and he was reminded once again how he didn't really know her anymore. Then he looked down. Her whole body had turned a delightful shade of pink and he immediately wanted to get a closer look. He was about to grab her, about to tell her he wanted more, when he abruptly turned and left the bathroom without even grabbing a towel.  
  
****  
  
It had been six days since she passed out in the med bay, and Rose was no closer to finding any of the answers she wanted. Six days of inane chatter when she could get him to talk to her at all. He'd given her a few details on his past with the Master, but nothing concrete and nothing that explained how they'd wound up traveling together. No mentions of  _so, Rose, how's your head after you blacked out and that scary light in the back of your mind took over again?_  Or,  _hey Doctor, so what's with this link in our heads that makes sex so spectacular?_  Or,  _you've taken me away from my family and everyone I love, are you planning on keeping me locked in the TARDIS forever?_  
  
Six days of awkward run-ins with her fellow...passenger? Prisoner? The Master's relationship to the Doctor thus far defied description. There was affection between them, despite an apparently violent history. The Master had casually referenced killing the Doctor and the Doctor had snorted and ignored him. It was easy enough to tell that they felt more for each other than they might have if they'd been strangers mourning Gallifrey together. It was also easy to see that the Doctor had no intention of actually releasing the Master as he seemed to expect. She wondered how long it would take the Master to realize. Maybe he already realized and was plotting against them. It seemed like the sort of thing he might do. From the few sketchy details the Doctor had given her, he'd done much worse.  
  
Six days of no explanations, as if he expected 25-year-old Rose Tyler to accept even more on faith than her 19-year-old version. She wondered if he knew how terrified she was, deep down, and how good she'd gotten at hiding her fear during her years at Torchwood and her efforts to promote the Dimension Cannon. Did he understand that she truly needed to know what was going on, that she could not continue to live this way? It was hard to tell since the Doctor didn't speak to her much at all. She saw him only when he wanted her to see him. The TARDIS must have been helping him hide from her, and a tentative push at the vast, incredibly alien presence at the back of her mind got her nowhere. The TARDIS's hum remained unchanged no matter how she pleaded. She saw him once or twice a day in the kitchen — where she pointed out their impending food shortages — and sometimes during the night. Otherwise he would appear seemingly at random, and usually for one reason.  
  
Six days of violent, startlingly delicious sex, as alarming in how much it turned her on as how it showed her Doctor had changed. At first she'd thought it was just that it was him, finally him after all the years she'd spent pining after him while he haunted her dreams. The Doctor's cock inside her at last, filling her body while his presence overwhelmed her mind. Even if was nothing like she'd imagined it back as the innocent 19-year-old she'd been. Even though he never asked permission or seemed to care if he had it. He pushed her farther than any other lover ever had, not that she'd had many. After a week she slowly began to realize she liked it. All she had to do was look at him the right way and he'd have her pinned to the nearest flat surface in a heartsbeat. It was always fast and rough and exciting, but sometimes he could be so tender her heart ached at it. When his fingers trailed down her face so gently, she could almost believe he loved her like she loved him. Then, when they'd both come, he'd leave, making some silly excuse and not looking back at her as he walked away.  
  
Six days of no landings on any planet, anywhere, not even Earth. The food in the pantry was running low, the selection going from sparse to repulsive. She had no idea what most of the remaining items were, their markings not translated properly by the TARDIS. She didn't know if they were even edible for humans. There were more than a few signs that there hadn't been any humans on board for a very long time. The cupboards were empty of Earth products, even the ones she'd expect him to refuse to live without, like strawberry jam. The layout of the TARDIS corridors had changed and become more confusing. She wasn't always sure of finding her room anymore. The library was organized and catalogued with the spirals she knew represented the Doctor's written language. She had no idea why the TARDIS wasn't translating for her when she always had before. It was yet another question she had no answer for.  
  
Six days of a delirious, dizzying combination of ecstasy and well-suppressed terror. Maybe it wasn't so different from before after all. They'd always been running from monsters while laughing at the absurdity of it all. This time, though, it was the Doctor who was the monster. And she couldn't run, not from him. She didn't want to. Even if she wanted more, needed more, she wasn't capable of walking away from what she had. Not when what she had was him.  
  
Six days had been long enough for her to mull over the moment she'd stepped inside his mind. It was as though she'd crossed some impossibly high threshold, and suddenly she was there, in a vast cavern of reverberating thoughts and memories hidden away in nooks. There had been so much data, flowing through her and around her and everywhere, like a molecular river. It had been too much for her to process and her brain had filed it away for later contemplation. She had barely taken a step toward the wall when she was buffeted away with a resounding blast of  _no_. Then there had been nothing, and then the strange hallway where she'd seen the Doctor again. How had she gotten there? There was something right in front of her and she couldn't quite put her finger on it.  
  
Last night had been the strangest of all; the Master had visited the TARDIS, visibly annoyed and saying his TARDIS was out of food, “even the Belkin crackers, and those aren't technically edible.” He had accused the Doctor of deliberately crippling his TARDIS and ranted about injustice and the Doctor's hypocrisy. The Doctor had barely reacted, telling Rose to go see what they had to eat. Both Time Lords followed her, the Master chattering away in slightly sinister anecdotes. They'd eaten dinner together, using up the last of the real food, which had made for the most awkward meal of Rose's life. Periods of strained silence were only interrupted by the sound of chewing and the occasional snide remark from the Master. The Doctor hadn't said a word the whole meal.  
  
And now this brief, flippant note left on the console, accompanied by a locked front door. He had never locked her in before. She hadn't even known it was possible, though she supposed it must be or else the Master would have run off years ago.  
  
 _Rose — Have gone to pick up a few spare parts and some supplies. Stay in the TARDIS. Don't even think about wandering off._  
  
He'd finally listened to them about the food, but he'd left her behind. Why? She wasn't about to start enslaving planets like certain blond Time Lords. Was where they'd landed dangerous?  
  
Rose snorted as she tossed the note onto the console. Don't wander off, not bloody likely. When had she ever listened to him in the past? She sought out the echoing presence of him in the back of her mind. It was still there, silvery blue and comforting, though he seemed farther away in a way she couldn't articulate. She didn't have the vocabulary to describe what was happening with the telepathic link the Doctor had forged without her consent.  
  
The Master was still there as well, a strange and eerie yet not unattractive green. The darkness contained within that little thread seeped out as she probed at it. She wondered if he had out-of-TARDIS privileges, since Rose obviously didn't. If she had to guess from his mental presence she would say he was still in his TARDIS, or wherever it was he went when he wasn't around making nasty comments about everything. Not that she really understood where his TARDIS even was. The Doctor had said his TARDIS was nurturing the Master's, like a mother or a nanny, not that she had any idea what that meant, or if they were somehow attached physically.  
  
Her personal opinion of the Master based on their time together was more uncertain. She was not really afraid of him. He reminded her of an alien version of her first boyfriend, a walking cliché of an unemployed musician. He'd seemed sweet, or at least harmless at first, winning her over with his charm and writing songs for her. Then one day not long after she'd moved in with him, Jimmy had turned on her in an instant and she'd found herself being slapped across his dingy flat. He wanted to control her, and when words didn't work he resorted to his fists. The Master did the same thing on a universal scale. She bet Harold Saxon had seemed like the nicest politician around until the day he started slaughtering millions. And Rose Tyler would never be afraid of that kind of coward.  
  
The whole situation was as if she'd walked into some advanced course at university without taking any of the pre-requisites, everyone simply assuming she knew enough to get by. Nobody in the class would say a word to her for fear of angering the professor.  
  
Well, she was bloody sick of the professor. Maybe it was time she asked someone else for help.  
  
Even if that someone else was a psychotic alien prisoner who'd enslaved her whole planet just for kicks.  
  
****  
  
It had been two days by Rose's reckoning since the Doctor had left the TARDIS when she felt an out-of-place wave of dread roll through her. For a moment she didn't understand. She wondered if she was starting to crack up from lack of food. She'd eaten the last jam jar, hidden away at the back of the cupboard, yesterday morning. Could low blood sugar make you hallucinate?  
  
Then she realized she was feeling what the Doctor was feeling again. The fear settled into her bones and her muscles tensed. The Doctor was in trouble, somewhere outside the TARDIS. She was absolutely certain of it, the little silver-blue thread singing to her as clearly as a bell.  
  
She ran to her room and yanked on her trainers. It occurred to her that she had no idea where they were, when they were, or even if the atmosphere outside the TARDIS would be habitable for her as a human being. A few times in the past he'd landed somewhere with enough oxygen for his superior biology, but with levels too low to sustain her for more than a few minutes. After sneaking out after him the first time, and winding up gasping for air and turning blue before he dragged her back into the TARDIS in a fury, she'd learned her lesson. Of course, in the past he'd always told her why he was leaving her behind.  
  
As she approached the console room she felt a change in the hum of the TARDIS. She put her hand on the wall, stroking the coral lightly. “I don't know where he is, old girl, and I'm afraid.”  
  
The hum got slightly louder in response. Rose knew there was no point in actually talking to the TARDIS. The ship communicated in images and feelings, not words. She frowned and closed her eyes to concentrate. She pictured the Doctor in trouble, locked in a jail cell; God knew she'd seen that enough times. She pictured herself opening the lock and letting him out.   
  
There was a pause, then the hum took on a dubious note, as if the TARDIS didn't think this was a good idea. Or maybe she didn't think Rose was capable of rescuing him from whatever trouble he'd got himself into this time. The door stayed locked.  
  
Rose cursed with frustration. Then another wave of foreign emotion crashed through her, dropping her to her knees on the grating. She winced. Her knees were already sore from three days ago, when the Doctor had taken her from behind in this very room. The terror she'd felt receded gradually as if washing back into the Doctor's mind. Before it went she grabbed a piece of it and pushed it toward the TARDIS. The old girl had to understand that Rose only wanted to help the Doctor.  
  
Then there was a click and the door cracked open. Rose grinned.  
  
“Thanks, girl,” she said, and headed outside into the unknown.


	5. Chapter 5

  
The Doctor pulled the red wires loose from the inside of the rickety old ship, twining them together with the blue ones from the next panel and squinting through his glasses at the connection. His tongue tapped at the inside of his teeth. That should do it; a few more and this whole section of the shipyard would soon be nothing more than space dust. He'd have five minutes to get the transmat working to send him back to the marketplace, but he always did his best electronics repair under pressure.  
  
He hadn't planned on blowing up a bunch of space pirates when he'd left the TARDIS two days earlier, he'd only meant to buy supplies and a healthy amount of food for his whinging passengers, but these things happened sometimes. Rose was safely locked away where she couldn't protest or get in the way or Rassilon forbid use her own powers to attack the slavers. The Master would have been all too delighted to help, but the man had never been very good at doing things subtly. It would be easier to finish the bomb on his own than wrangle the semi-sane Time Lord.  
  
Not to mention, if the Master had seen what the Doctor had seen, his rage would have been uncontrollable. The Doctor had barely been able to hold it together when he'd seen the collection of merchandise in the marketplace, and he'd spent the next day and a half tracing it back to the source. When he'd found the slaves in chains it had only settled the matter. All the pirates would die. Some of the slaves would die, too, that was unavoidable, but he planned to set as many free as he could before he made his escape.  
  
He needed to make that escape soon. How long would it be before the Master or Rose got bored or anxious and came after him? He knew he'd accidentally sent some of the fear and hatred he'd felt through the link to Rose before slamming his shields down over it.  
  
He reached out for them and found them both quiescent. The Master seemed to be fiddling with his TARDIS, which was how he spent most of his time these days as far as the Doctor could tell. He could sense Rose's upset and anxiety, but he could also tell that she was safe within the TARDIS. She wasn't best pleased with him, he knew that. He would have to give her some sort of explanation eventually, but he was more than happy to put that off as long as he possibly could. If there was one thing he could say in favor of the uncontrollable sexual urges he'd had since forming their bond, it was that Rose had a hard time asking difficult questions when she was moaning with pleasure. The involuntarily response of his traitorous body to the mental picture of her face in the throes of orgasm made him shift uncomfortably. It had been almost three days since he'd last had her. His thoughts wandered, tempting him to abandon his work here in favor of racing back to the TARDIS and taking her. Hot little hands everywhere, her sweet tongue in his mouth, the scalding heat inside her. He felt a flush of annoyance at how he'd suddenly become an adolescent again. He hadn't had such difficulty controlling his urges since he started at the Academy.  
  
He sighed and purposely pictured the terror of the slaves that had done nothing wrong other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When had he become this, custodian of the universe, jailor to the two people he loved most? Hadn't there been a time when he'd been footloose, roaming the universe with his beloved companions, helping people and seeing new things, like a permanent tourist? When had he become this pathetic shell of his former self, hiding in his TARDIS? Rutting with Rose like an animal, exercising no control over his most basic biological impulses? The Master had sneered at him and the Master was right. Destroying these smuggling slavers and their sickening cache was the first thing he'd felt any pride about in a very long time.  
  
Too much had happened. Too much pain, too much loss. Gallifrey had only been the start. He couldn't go back, not that he deserved to. If he'd learned anything in the near century since he'd destroyed his home planet, it was that love was never worth the pain it inevitably brought. Not with the ephemeral little apes, much as he had always adored them. Not even with Rose, and that was a unique sort of pain by now. She would be by his side always, but he could never allow her the sort of connection he really craved. The sex was a hollow stopgap. That was why he couldn't get enough of it.  
  
He finished wiring the makeshift bomb and doublechecked his handiwork. He set the timer for five minutes and started it. Then he left, without so much as a backward glance at the collection of Gallifreyan artifacts stored on the floor behind him.  
  
****  
  
Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and into low, foggy light.  
  
She couldn't tell if it was twilight or if this was simply how the light looked on whatever world the Doctor had parked them on. The air had a slick grayish tinge to it, as though she could swipe her hand through it like fog, but when she tried to do so there was no effect. She frowned, feeling uneasy, and not just because she had no idea where she was. Something was strange, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it.  
  
She was in a courtyard, four walls open to the gray sky above. A low tiled fountain trickled faintly in the center, the water looking distinctly thicker than she was accustomed to. It seeped slowly from the spout of the fountain into the pool below. Maybe it wasn't water at all. She wasn't going to stick her hand in and find out. The ground was mahogany-colored dirt and the four walls surrounding her were beige stucco like she'd seen on many planets. One forlorn tree grew in the corner, its branches hanging heavy like a willow tree, though its leaves were a deep purple and shaped like a five-point star. A few fallen leaves lay scattered on the ground. One floated slowly in the too-thick water of the fountain.  
  
Suddenly she realized what was bothering her about this courtyard.  
  
It had no discernible exit. There was no door, no windows into the buildings surrounding it, no way to get in or out and no apparent reason why there would be a fountain that no one could even ever look at. How had the Doctor gotten out? Had he somehow sent the TARDIS here after he left, just to make sure she couldn't go anywhere if she managed to sweet-talk the TARDIS into letting her out?  
  
Well, she had managed to convince the TARDIS to let her go. Maybe the Doctor had anticipated that. Then another thought occurred to her; where was the Master's TARDIS? She had no idea what it looked like, or if it had a functional chameleon circuit that would allow it to change its appearance to match their surroundings.   
  
She frowned. Chameleon circuit? Where had that little snippet of information come from? She didn't remember the Doctor ever explaining that to her. He'd claimed he liked the TARDIS to look like a blue police box, even when it was completely incongruous. No one ever seemed to notice it, so she hadn't though twice about it.  
  
She was still puzzling over this fragment of TARDIS data when the wall behind her opened inward like a door. A strong arm grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her backwards before she could react, and a hand closed over her mouth before she could scream.  
  
****  
  
“Apparently you're every bit as obedient as the Doctor said you were,” the Master said as he shoved her inside and slammed his TARDIS door shut behind her. “How did you even get out? I thought he'd deadlock sealed the door.”  
  
Rose stared around her. The Master's TARDIS was very different from the Doctor's. There was no visible coral; the console was all glass and plastic and metal, the center a glass bowl perfectly symmetrical both vertically and horizontally. Through clear glass walls at the edges of the room she could see something huge pulsing slowly, emitting an orangey red light. It surrounded them entirely, leaving only a few gaps here and there. Three of them had doorways that led off into absolute darkness.  
  
“If you're done admiring my wonderful ship, you could answer my question. I told the Doctor he'd be better off chaining you to the wall, but he thought that was excessive. I think he just doesn't want to risk you refusing to have sex with him.”  
  
She slowly brought her eyes around to the other Time Lord. His blond hair looked dirty and his face was smudged. A clear glass hatch was open under the console. He'd been tinkering, just like she'd seen the Doctor do a thousand times. Rose almost smiled. “I've never seen another TARDIS,” she said.  
  
The Master rolled his eyes. “They used to be common enough. This is myy TARDIS, and once I figure out how to dismantle the link between this one and the Doctor's I'll be off and you'll never get to see my handsome face again. What a pity that will be for you. I'm going to ask you one more time, and no more Doctor-y evasions. How did you escape the deadlock seal?”  
  
She shrugged. “I asked nicely.”  
  
He narrowed his eyes at her, and she realized with a dead certainty that he was going to try to invade her mind again. Maybe not this minute, but eventually he would, and the Doctor wouldn't be able to stop him. She would have to defend herself. Oddly, she was fairly certain she would be able to.   
  
“You did, did you? Well, I suppose you must have a mental link with her after ripping her guts open. Funny, the Doctor doesn't seem to quite understand it. It's almost as if his TARDIS is deliberately misleading him.” He chuckled. “They're tricky ladies, TARDISes. You rip her open and you're best friends. I do the same and she doesn't even want me inside her anymore! Fickle, she is.”  
  
Rose shifted uncomfortably. She would have leaned against something, but there was nothing she trusted not to leap out and attack her. “You never shut up, just like him. Why'd you drag me in here?”  
  
“Well, a Time Lord's a Time Lord at the end of the day. As magnificent as we are, how could we not love to hear ourselves talk? You should have heard the High Council, those fools could blather on for millenia. It's that or telepathy and your keeper has declared telepathy around your inferior brain verboten, as those naughty Germans might say. Not that it'll help in the end, but he never listens to reason. As to why I brought you in here, I'm playing Doctor's Enforcer. You're not to go out on the planet for any reason.”  
  
That sounded vaguely threatening, but so did almost everything that came out of his mouth. “I'm not afraid of you.”  
  
“You're really not, are you? Well, if I had the power of the cosmos locked inside my mind I wouldn't be afraid of a little Time Lord either. Don't know why you're putting up with the Doctor. If I were you I would have blasted him halfway across the galaxy. Ah, those were the days.”  
  
Rose swallowed. She both knew and didn't know what he meant. She knew the light inside her head was powerful, and terrifying, but she could never remember what happened when it was released. Bad Wolf. That was what really scared her.  
  
“Why won't the Doctor talk about it with me?”  
  
The expression on the Master's face reminded her of the Doctor when he was forced to dumb things down for people less clever than him. It happened often enough, and on the Doctor it always looked like he smelled something he didn't like. She had no idea how much the Master had been lying to her, but she had a strong feeling the next thing out of his mouth was going to be true.  
  
“He's terrified. So terrified he rewrote time to keep you with him. Can't you smell his fear? Don't you know him at all?” the Master said, shockingly succinct.  
  
And when he said it, she realized she did know the Doctor was scared, just like she was. Her own fear overwhelmed her for a moment and she forced herself to swallow hard and take a deep breath. As she looked at the Master's face she knew he was frightened too. Something about the other universe and a different timeline. She stared at the Master, wordless.  
  
Almost gently, he said, “Running is what he does, he's the Doctor, never sticks around. Not when we were kids and not now. If you want him to talk to you you're going to have to do something drastic.” He fiddled with the controls on the console. They moved jerkily, as though they were frozen. Rose realized she couldn't hear the soothing hum she associated with the Doctor's TARDIS. She wished for one of those little fragments of TARDIS know-how, but nothing came to mind.  
  
“Drastic, like what?”  
  
“You want my expertise? If it were me, I'd tie him to the rack and stretch him til he told me what I wanted to know. Or, no, really, that's far too cliché. Maybe I'd coat him in sugar and bring in a long-tongued filasik lizard. They can rip off a whole chunk of skin with nothing but their tongues.” The Master's voice had grown brittle as he spat out the words. She wondered if the Master might actually love the Doctor, all his bluster just a facade.  
  
“What has he done to you aside from save you from yourself?” she challenged.  
  
The Master abandoned his console and moved quickly to her side, using the same trick the Doctor had used. She didn't see him move until he was peering into her eyes. She leaned away from him, but his hands slammed into the wall on either side of her, pinning her in place. “Save me? Or imprison me? He made a deal, I'd behave myself and he'd let me go. It's been fifty years now, ape-girl. He's not even allowed my TARDIS to properly take root. Grew me a shell, got it ready, but she's empty. I can feel her potential but I can't connect to her. He must know what a hunger it is. Like an empty stomach in my mind, just waiting to be filled up.”  
  
She eyed the two strong arms keeping her pinned to the wall. She wondered what the Doctor would do if he walked in on them right now. The Master moved one of his arms to pin her face, looking into her eyes. She stared back at him.  
  
“I can see it in you. I really should take it out of you, bugger what the Doctor says. I could do it, I'm certain, my mental skills have always been superior to his.” He sighed again, dramatically this time. He shifted closer to her and she felt the press of his body against hers, firm and cool. “I'm a better kisser than he is, too. He never paid enough attention to those little details. Like just how to stroke a woman's tongue to send shivers down her spine.”   
  
Rose realized he was going to kiss her a split second before he did it. As promised, his tongue made its way into her mouth and stroked her just so. She felt nothing through her slow-growing telepathic sense; it was just an ordinary, if sensually satisfying, kiss. He stopped and gave her a smirk. “Well, that didn't work. Suppose you don't remember how it was done the last time you lost a Vortex that way.”  
  
She had frozen again, as solid as ice. Why hadn't she resisted him, pushed him away? She swallowed again and said, "If I were you I wouldn't be bragging."  
  
He refused to take her bait. He raised a finger to her chin again, tilting her head toward him. “What do you say I show you what happened in that other timeline?”   
  
“You could do that?” Rose asked, snapping out of her mental fog.  
  
“Of course. I can do anything,” he assured her.  
  
Rose's eyes narrowed. “I don't trust you.”  
  
“That's very smart by ape standards,” he said. Then he put his hands on her temples and Rose was falling, falling into a black abyss of nothingness. He had lied, of course. There was no show-and-tell, just a sickening pulling sensation as her mind was invaded.  
  
She fought back, throwing the golden energy at him until it started to burn her. She floated up on the vaporous heat before sending it all into him. She forced her eyes back open. He had released her, his whole body glowing with that familiar yellow light. “Oh...” he moaned. “That is  _delicious_.”  
  
Then he collapsed in a heap at her feet, his lanky body sprawled on the translucent floor as though floating suspended in space.  
  
Rose stared at him for a moment before bending down to check his pulse. It was there, fast and strange with a double beat. She could feel his chest rise under her fingers. Whatever she'd done, it hadn't killed him.  
  
As she straightened, she caught a glimpse of her reflection on the shiny surface of the console and flinched, nearly collapsing herself as she realized the Master had told the truth. She was remembering what he and the Doctor had seen on their first visit to Pete's world. She was remembering what she'd done before she did it.  
  
She remembered chaos, and missing planets, and whole sections of the universe collapsing in on itself. She saw the Doctor near panic, searching this foreign universe for one tiny pink and yellow human. She saw herself, unconscious and alone on the floor of a wreck of a clearly second-hand spaceship. She saw the Doctor touch her temples and go so white his freckles were stark against his skin. “It was her,” the Doctor croaked. “This whole universe is done for and it was her all along. It's still in her and I never knew.” He looked as though he was about to say more, before turning violently and racing back toward his TARDIS. She watched as the Master followed, confused but delighted to find out what kind of weapon could cause this kind of damage.  
  
She would have fainted dead away like the Master, but instead she had to make an abrupt, desperate grab for one of the squared-off columns as the Master's TARDIS shook violently and rocked back and forth. The roaring in her ears intensified as the younger TARDIS lurched sideways and Rose's feet left the floor.


	6. Chapter 6

  
The Doctor carried the Master to the infirmary of his own TARDIS. He felt as though his organs had turned to lead, dragging him down to the cold grating. The weight of his best friend of so many years matched the ache in his hearts. He had hoped so very much that it wouldn't come to this. His hopes had been dashed, as it seemed they so often were.  
  
He had been heading back from the now-destroyed marketplace, using the tunnel under the fountain and emerging clean and dry into the cool air when there had been a sharp shock through his mind. A shock he hadn’t felt since the day he erased the rest of the Time Lords from existence. The whiplike lashing pain of his mental links to the Master and Rose suddenly being cut.  
  
As he ran to the Master’s TARDIS smoke seeped from under the door and so abruptly that he staggered to his knees, the connections returned, Rose and the Master’s presences clear in his mind. He allowed himself a millisecond’s repose on the ground out of sheer gratitude before climbing to his feet and diving inside the damaged TARDIS.  
  
He pulled Rose from the rubble of the Master's console room, trying to hide his fear at what could have caused the destruction. The young TARDIS couldn’t have been damaged by the explosion nearly a mile distant. He had suspicions, and they terrified him even worse than the brief moment he’d thought the Master and Rose were both dead.  
  
For now, he had sent her further under, allowing her brain to heal while he took care of the Master. He had hoped the Master would be able to resist his darker impulses but it seemed he could not. He'd done so well the last decade or so, even occasionally venturing onto planets together without a single incident. Now he had to make a choice, the hardest choice he'd made since he left his clone and Rose together on that frigid beach. He could not keep them both.  
  
But which could he bring himself to give up? His oldest friend, former lover, the only remaining member of his species? Or the girl he loved, had loved from the moment he met her, who if he was completely honest with himself, he wanted by his side until the end of his days?  
  
And how could he leave one of them without putting innocent lives in danger? He had told the Master he would release him after an undetermined period of good behavior, and technically he had agreed to grant his release in return for helping divert Rose's timeline. Not that he had ever actually intended to do so. He convinced himself for years that the Master didn't really want to leave. How could they be apart, the last two, the lonely pang inside their skulls only soothed by each other. To find that the Master still wanted to go had caused him unexpected pain. He never expected the man to stop being devious; he'd had a streak of that even when they were children. But outsmarting him had gotten old after a few decades and they'd fallen into a nearly respectable cohabitation. They'd even stopped their entirely ridiculous hate-fucking. They hadn't been inside each other for years. Well, year. Six months.  
  
Then another possibility for Rose floated through his mind. He felt his stomach twist uneasily at the thought, vividly recalling a flash of Donna's red hair as she collapsed in his arms. No, he couldn't just erase Rose's memory. That would just make it easier for her to fall prey to those who would love to get their hands on her.  
  
But there were other things he could do. Things Rose undoubtedly wouldn’t like. But they might be necessary all the same.  
  
As he lay the Master on one of the med bay beds, the other man shifted, his eyes opening. He winced and rubbed at his temples. Then, looking at the Doctor, he chuckled. “Let me guess,” he said. “That massive explosion was you?”  
  
The Doctor shrugged.  
  
The other man almost giggled. He seemed to care about the damage to his TARDIS not at all, or maybe he didn't remember. Maybe he had a head injury. It wouldn't be the first time the Doctor had pondered the likelihood of brain damage in his friend. “That's what I love about you, Doctor. You never could restrain yourself when it came to explosives.”  
  
“They had one of the Void ships.”  
  
The Master sat up so abruptly the Doctor had to jump out of the way. “How did they get it? I thought they were all lost.”  
  
“No, we've seen one before, Rose and I. The Daleks got their filthy hands on one. Some idiot humans thought they could use it as a power source and opened it up.” He paused, gauging the other Time Lord's reaction, and added, “That's how Rose and I were separated in the first place. They ripped a hole between the universes and Rose was sucked in.”  
  
The Master's mouth was a thin line. The Doctor could sense the rage building in him, and the other man's attempt to constrain it inside him. The Doctor gave him a slight mental caress and the Master relaxed almost imperceptibly. “So? Are the Daleks all dead?”  
  
“Not Daleks this time. Just old-fashioned Releshi pirates coming across a dead ship in space. It malfunctioned and left the Void. Fortunately the damage to it was great enough that the pirates weren't able to get much salvage from it. I destroyed it, and them.”  
  
“Too bad you didn't come get me. We could have made them regret the day they were spawned.”  
  
The Doctor leaned against the far wall. “And what would I have interrupted if I came back?”  
  
“Me keeping your pet on a leash after you let her run about unsupervised? Bad idea, that, you know what trouble she is.”  
  
“Don't lie to me. I know you touched her, I could smell you on her.”  
  
“Maybe you should ask her how she touched me.”  
  
The Doctor shook his head. He was surprised at how calm he felt. “I asked you not to touch her. I warned you. You did it anyway. I didn't think my threats were so empty.”  
  
The other man swallowed compulsively and the Doctor knew he was remembering the dark period immediately after he'd been imprisoned in the TARDIS. The Doctor generally preferred not to think about that time either. He didn't intend to repeat it. “I don’t know if I can resist it. The pain is nothing compared to that feeling of touching the pure artron energy inside her. You must know, with all the shagging on inappropriate surfaces you two have been doing.”  
  
“I do know,” the Doctor admitted. “I've seen it, I've felt it. She's not human anymore. What she is...well. I think we both know that by now..”  
  
“She’s a walking paradox machine, is what she is. Even better than the one I made out of your TARDIS.”  
  
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t think it was possible. Other species, the vortex energy is supposed to kill them. Or was that just another one of Rassillon’s convenient myths?”  
  
“You and I have both seen enough to know not to take everything we learned at the Academy seriously.”  
  
“Like you ever did,” the Doctor said dryly.  
  
“And you were a model student, as I recall.”  
  
“Yes, well. We’re the only two, now. We can make up our own rules and myths.”  
  
The Master's eyes gleamed. “Think about what we could do with that kind of power. We'd be gods, Doctor. Don't tell me you're not tempted.”  
  
“I'm always tempted,” the Doctor said.  
  
“Tempted, but too self-righteous to do anything really fun.” He leaned toward the Doctor, his eagerness radiating between them. “We wouldn't even have to hurt her. She has some control, I saw it.”  
  
“Did you?”  
  
“Oh yes. She gave me a quick zap, enough to stun me but not enough to harm me.” Then he frowned. “Could she have taken the shields down on my TARDIS?  
  
“I think she might be the one who blew up your TARDIS.”  
  
The Master opened his mouth as though about to speak, then abruptly clamped it shut as he thought through what the Doctor was suggesting. “You think she released enough artron energy to damage the TARDIS? Why would she do that?”  
  
“You tell me.”  
  
“I didn’t hurt her. All I did was...oh.”  
  
The Doctor was astonished. He hadn’t seen a sheepish expression on the Master’s face since they were eight years old. “What? What did you do to her?”  
  
“I showed her my memories of what we saw on our first trip to the other universe.”  
  
Surprising himself yet again, the Doctor’s first reaction wasn’t rage. He suppressed a sort of horrified laugh. “Let me guess. She got very upset, and all her shields dropped, and she nearly destroyed your TARDIS.”  
  
“I don’t know,” the Master admitted. “She lit me up with artron energy first. I was nearly unconscious, then there was an explosion and I was unconscious.” The man shuddered at the memory. “Oh, Doctor. I do understand why you have such a hard time keeping your hands off her. Imagine if dear Lucy had been chock full of artron energy.”  
  
The Doctor gave him a sour look. “You know entirely too much about that already.”  
  
“Enough to deal with it better than you are. At least when I tried to bond with a human I had lots of other apes around to play with when I broke her.”  
  
“The apes weren't the only ones you played with.”  
  
“Yes, well. I didn't have the best impulse control back then.”  
  
“You still don't. That's why we're in the situation we're in right now.”  
  
The Master shifted impatiently on the med bay bed. “Are you ever going to get to the point? Gods, and I thought your early incarnations never shut up.”  
  
The Doctor ignored this mild insult. “I have to make a choice. Who's more dangerous: you or Rose?”  
  
The Master laughed. “You know the answer to that question.”  
  
“I suppose I do. The question remains, what am I going to do? I can't keep you both here, either she'll kill you accidentally or you'll somehow provoke her into inadvertently ending this timeline and probably this universe while she’s at it.”  
  
“You really think she’s capable of that?”  
  
“I don't know. It's possible. We have no way of determining everything she can do. She could do anything.”  
  
The Master smirked. “Wait til she figures that out.”  
  
“I hope she never does. I’m not going to tell her and neither are you. I’ve done enough to make her a monster like me.”  
  
The blond man snorted. “Typical. You have a universe full of opportunity in front of you, all their little rules burnt with Gallifrey, and all you see is your guilt.”  
  
“You know nothing about my guilt. You ran - ”  
  
“I don’t? You know what happened to me when the drums finally stopped. I’ve hurt and killed nearly as many people as you have, and without your convenient excuses. I enjoyed it, Doctor. I liked playing with lives and planets and time. I even enjoyed the Time War up until I realized we were going to lose. I was the worst of what a Time Lord could become.”  
  
“No, you weren’t,” the Doctor said darkly.  
  
“I suppose I never tried to blow up the whole universe. I always did like living too much for universal destruction.” The other man yanked off the leads the Doctor had placed on him and stood. “Make your choice or don’t, Doctor. I think Rose and I are both getting awfully tired of your indecision.”  
  
****  
  
Rose drifted through unconsciousness loosely, her brainwaves too scattered to form dreams, when something grabbed her and lifted her into a shimmering white light. She closed her internal eye against its brilliance until it suddenly gave way to a familiar yellow-green glow. Letting her eyes drift open, she flinched in surprise before realizing she must be dreaming.  
  
She was in the TARDIS kitchen and a strange dark-haired woman in a ragged grey dress — complete with bustle — was puttering around making tea. She'd never seen the woman before but she seemed familiar nevertheless.  
  
“Do I know you?”  
  
“Of course, Rose Tyler,” the woman said, her voice brusque, as though she expected that Rose already knew the answer to that question.  
  
Rose blinked at her. “It's like...I recognize you, but I can't think of where from.”  
  
“The Doctor calls me Sexy,” she said.  
  
“The Doctor calls you...” Rose repeated, certain she had misheard the last word, but the other woman went on.  
  
“You've never seen me in this form. This form will never exist now, that timeline's possibility has ended. Well, as much as such things can be said to have ended, you won't see it, and neither will my thief. This body is useful for talking to you here. Our normal method of communication is not exact enough for this purpose.”  
  
“Um...who are you?” The expression on the older woman's face made her certain she was being slow.  
  
Then she smiled, lighting up her plain face. “He didn't-won’t figure it out either. I'm the TARDIS.”  
  
Rose accepted this at face value, it being a dream. “And you're...dressed as a refugee from a fancy dress party?”  
  
The TARDIS frowned. “Is there something wrong with these clothes? They cover all the parts, the parts my thief doesn't like to talk about.”  
  
Rose snorted, choking back a laugh. It occurred to her that it could be unwise to laugh at the ship you relied upon to transport you across the universe. “Your thief is the Doctor? He stole you?”  
  
“The Doctor, yes, that's what you call him. He stole me and I stole him. It was entirely mutual.”  
  
“Okay. So why are you here, now, in my dream? You're really here, it's not just my imagination?”  
  
“Oh yes, I'm really here. You weren't understanding my normal messages so I decided to try another method. The problem with this one is that I can't be sure what you'll remember when you wake up. Your flesh brains are very unreliable at retaining vital information.”  
  
“I'll try very hard to remember,” Rose promised.  
  
The woman nodded and turned back to the tea, switching the kettle off as the water began to boil. She poured out two cups, one into a TARDIS-blue mug Rose had never seen before, and the other into Rose’s favorite chipped floral cup. Rose took a sip. It was perfect, sweet and milky, just as she liked it. It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen the woman put any milk or sugar in it.  
  
“My thief is being led by his heart, and he has made mistakes,” the TARDIS began. “He made mistakes with you, long ago, and he believes now that he must atone for those mistakes. He does not understand your true nature.”  
  
“My true nature?” Rose repeated blankly.  
  
“Yes. You are one with me, Rose Tyler. You should not exist, yet you do. You should not be in this universe, yet you are. This universe’s existence depends upon your continued existence now. Thief does not realize this. He has put his mark on you, and you must mark him in return. Only then will this universe stabilize.”  
  
“Mark him?” She realized she was starting to sound like a three-year-old with an older sibling. This was the strangest conversation she’d ever had, and she had had some very odd conversations during her time with the Doctor and Torchwood.  
  
“Yes, and soon. There is another thing. You must convince the other Time Lord not to leave. He is dangerous, but the true danger will only come without him here. One Time Lord will not be enough to control the Bad Wolf.”  
  
Rose’s dream-brain sorted through these words like puzzle pieces. There were so many of them, and she didn’t understand what the final picture was supposed to look like. “I don’t understand,” she admitted.  
  
“You don’t need to understand yet, Rose Tyler. Only remember.”  
  
****  
  
Rose woke slowly, swimming to consciousness through a thick, greasy lake of brain waves. The dream was slow to leave her brain, leaving her with vague impressions and a sense of impending dread.  
  
She was lying on a hard chill surface, her limbs stiff and aching. For a moment she tensed, thinking she was still in the wreckage of the Master's console room. But no; as she opened her eyes she expected to wince at the light, but it was near dark. Only a dim light came in from the hallway through the bars.  
  
Wait — bars? She was in a cell? Not that this would be the first time for that, but she was certain she was on a TARDIS. She could feel its familiar, subtle hum in the back of her mind. Had the Master locked her in some kind of ...she didn't even want to think about what kind of dungeon he might keep.  
  
“Awake, I see,” said the voice of the alien she least wanted to see.  
  
She squinted at the blond Time Lord. “What the hell did you lock me in here for?”  
  
For half a second he looked taken aback, and then he laughed heartily. “Me? This is the Doctor's TARDIS. Mine got a bit blown up, if you remember.”  
  
Her head whirled and she tried to stand. “What are you saying? The Doctor locked me in here?”  
  
“Well, you did wander off when he specifically told you not to.”  
  
“Let me out!”  
  
“If I could I would, little ape. This TARDIS is not inclined to listen to me.”  
  
She looked around. It was indeed a cell, looking for all the universe like any other jail cell she'd had the privilege of occupying. A metal bench attached to the wall, a toilet, a sink, nothing else. She hadn't even known the TARDIS had a prison.  
  
“I don't envy you,” the Master told her flatly.  
  
“What do you mean?” Was he being facetious?  
  
“Being left alone with him, fifty years was bad enough, but you'll be with him a lot longer than that.”  
  
She chose to ignore the latter statement in favor of the former. She would just add it to the thousand questions she intended to ask the Doctor after she chained him to the wall and left him there for a few days.  
  
Something else nagged at the back of her brain. Was there something important she’d forgotten? Her memories of her last conscious moments in the Doctor’s TARDIS were spotty at best. The Master had kissed her and then - she couldn’t remember. She groaned inwardly, knowing what this must mean. “Left alone with the Doctor?”  
  
“I'm leaving,” he explained, his glee plain. “Just came by to tell you good-bye.”  
  
“He's letting you go,” Rose said in disbelief, “And he's got me locked in the fucking  _dungeon?_ ” She wasn't prone to cursing, but this was hands down the most ridiculous thing the Doctor had ever done to her, including the time he'd “accidentally” burnt her entire wardrobe on an isolated planet while trying to sonic out a pair of incendiary aliens and she'd had to run all the way back to the TARDIS in nothing but a towel. Her fear was disappearing, its place taken by anger. She raised her eyebrows. “Did you set this whole thing up?”  
  
“Set up, that's such an accusatory phrase. I like to think I merely helped the Doctor along. He would have gone back to see you eventually. Still talks about you after all these years, it's disgusting. Though I admit...” he stepped closer to the bars and sniffed the air. Rose jumped back. “You are delicious. There was a time I would have eaten you alive.”  
  
He chuckled at the expression on her face, and then took his leave, disappearing into the low light of the corridor.


	7. Chapter 7

  
Rose watched the Master walk away, her thoughts racing wildly. How could she get out of here? She reached out for the two telepaths who resided in the back of her mind, and felt a hollow pit opening up in her stomach when she realized she could barely sense them. She hadn’t realized what it would feel like, to lose that connection, even when she’d had it such a short time. She could still feel the TARDIS as strong as ever, to her relief. Would the TARDIS listen to her like she had before?  
  
At the thought of the TARDIS, something flashed through her mind and she gasped, suddenly remembering what the Master had shown her before. How could she have done such a thing? How was it even possible? She’d seen flashes of the Bad Wolf before, but nothing like that. Nothing universe-ending. And what did it mean that the Doctor had prevented that timeline from ever happening? Where were the reapers?  
  
She felt very strange; there was a chill in her, and it wasn’t only caused by the cool air of the Doctor’s dungeon. The Doctor’s dungeon. Now there was a phrase she never would have guessed she’d utter.  
  
She sighed and sat heavily on the metal bench suspended from one stone wall. She was almost amused by the dungeon, once she thought about it; the TARDIS had really gone all-out making it look like something from a horror movie. The walls were cool, chunky gray stone stacked together unevenly with no sign of mortar. There was a toilet and a sink tucked into the corner opposite the “bed,” both made out of some sort of soapstone. There was even one of the TARDIS’s fake windows, complete with heavy metal bars, showing a moonlit starscape.  
  
She patted the wall fondly and felt a pleased hum in her head. “He’s making you keep me in here, isn’t he?” she murmured. As she removed her hand from the wall, her fingers tingled. There was something else.  
  
The TARDIS. Something about the TARDIS, something more important than what the Master had done.  
  
 _You don’t need to understand yet, Rose Tyler. Only remember._  
  
The words echoed in her mind, every bit as clearly as she’d heard them in her dream. She gasped as it all came flooding back to her. Mark him? How was she supposed to do that? What did it even mean? She hadn’t seen any sort of mark on herself. Was it some sort of ... mental mark? She remembered the pain that had shot through her head when he’d first connected with her mind. The pain had only subsided when she’d pushed the link back at him, but then...he’d done something. Pushed her back out of his mind and into that strange corridor before they woke up together. If that was what she needed to do - according to the TARDIS - how could she stop him from doing what he’d done the last time?  
  
And if she’d been meant to stop the Master from leaving, well, she’d already failed at that task. Blowing up his TARDIS had been a start, but she knew from experience how quickly the sentient ships could heal themselves. He’d be gone in hours or days at the most and Rose was still locked in this cell.  
  
Rose closed her eyes and breathed deeply, remembering how she’d communicated with the TARDIS in the past. This time it seemed to come easier, images flowing back and forth. She tried to frame her problem in a way the TARDIS could understand - and who knew what the TARDIS understood, really. She seemed to operate on a level that was far beyond Rose’s understanding. She doubted that even the Doctor fully understood his own ship.  
  
She could feel her mind blossoming, opening like a flower. Images and feelings turned into concepts. As the TARDIS showed her what she must do, her fingers flew to her own temple, realizing what the Doctor had done. “But - how can I force him? I’m not a telepath, I don’t...”  
  
The TARDIS sent an image into her mind and she gasped, her eyes flying open. Then she smiled grimly. “Oh, yes, old girl. I think that will do the trick just fine.”  
  
****  
  
The Doctor approached the TARDIS prison from a new direction, not bothering to wonder why it had changed. His girl was always rearranging herself, and he assumed she had an underlying logic, even if his very different brain didn’t allow him to understand it.  
  
The Master was back in his own TARDIS, helping his much younger girl repair the damage Rose had done. Seeing the link between them flower and take root had been surprisingly beautiful, and the expression on the Master’s face so blissful it had brought tears to the Doctor’s eyes. In that moment, he regretted not allowing it earlier. He knew the pain of being locked away from your own TARDIS. Like two strands of vine, reaching for each other, straining to connect, and never quite touching.  
  
Rose was sitting in the corner of the bench in her cell, staring off into space. She didn’t look up at his approach. He paused outside the door to the cell, not telling the TARDIS to open the door just yet. He’d had to use an isomorphic override, knowing that Rose had sweet-talked his ship into letting her out before. There was nowhere else on board where the isomorphic controls could effectively contain someone, especially someone as good at communicating with a TARDIS as Rose had apparently become. He had never imagined, building this prison for the Master, that he’d one day need it for Rose Tyler. “Rose,” he began. “I’m sorry about this. I know you’re angry, but you have to believe, I just needed to keep you safe.”  
  
She didn’t move. Even her eyes remained fixed on the same unremarkable spot on the ceiling. He frowned in annoyance. He knew she was fine; the Master had told him as much, and her presence in the link was normal. Was she really so angry she’d rather stay in a cell than speak to him?  
  
****  
  
She refused to speak to him or even look at him. She knew he was still there; she hadn’t heard his footsteps and she could feel his gaze on her. The link to him in the back of her mind was there, strong and clear.  
  
Finally he cleared his throat. “The silent treatment? How very human female of you, Rose.”  
  
For a moment, she didn’t say anything and then she whirled. He was standing outside the bars, his arms crossed. He looked more amused than anything else. “Why am I here?”  
  
“Well, that’s a big question, Rose Tyler. All the religions in the universe - “  
  
“Shut UP!” she shouted. “Do not play this game with me! Let me out of here right now, right this instant!”  
  
“Which game is that? The one where I tell you not to wander off, and you deliberately disobey me?”  
  
“You left. You left for days. There was no food, I didn’t know where you’d gone, and I could feel that you were afraid! That something was wrong!”  
  
“And you thought you’d help, did you? Thought, ‘I’m Rose Tyler, I know better than the Doctor, how’d he ever live all those years without my help?’ Did it ever occur to you that I left you on the TARDIS for a reason? That if you wander off and get yourself killed - “ He stopped himself abruptly.  
  
“So what? I’d rather die than spend the rest of my life locked in your dungeon!”  
  
He looked surprised by her accusation, his eyebrows soaring up his forehead. “Rose, I never intended you to be here anything more than temporarily. I was going to put you back in your room but I can’t trust you not to wander off. Never could, I guess, but the Master and I- “  
  
“I don’t give a rat’s arse what you intended. You abducted me out of Pete’s World, you used my love for you to bind yourself to me against my will, and you kept me in the dark about incredibly important information, and for what? Because you’re too much of a coward to tell me the truth? The Master has told me more than you have. Then you bloody well left me alone on your TARDIS, no food and just a note from you with no explanation as to where you’d gone or when you’d be back. Not to mention how if you’d explained the link to me in the first place, I wouldn’t have felt so scared when I felt the surge of your emotions coming at me.”  
  
“Rose - you don’t - “  
  
“And every single time I try to understand what’s happening here, that I ask you, all I get from you is your cock or you running away again. It’s like all you want from me is sex. Is that why you really locked me in here? I’m just your sex slave, here to be used when you’re feeling the urge?”  
  
The Doctor seemed to be holding himself back from saying something angry. After a moment, he swallowed and said, “I’m sorry you feel that way. It wasn’t my intent.”  
  
“You’re always sorry about something. Go be sorry somewhere else, I don’t want to look at your face.”  
  
“You don’t want me to let you out?” His voice was incredulous.  
  
“Why should I? I’m still your prisoner, even if I’m not in a cell. We might as well call it what it is.”  
  
There was a click as the lock on the door released. “You’re not a prisoner, Rose. You’re my -” his throat seemed to close up around the words.  
  
Rose rolled her eyes. “Couldn’t say it then, can’t say it now. Just go away, Doctor. Go see your friend before he leaves you. You know he won’t be back, might be your last chance to tell him how you really feel.” She was almost surprised at herself, at how easily the harsh words flowed from her.  
  
The Doctor licked his lips. If she didn’t know better she’d think he was genuinely confused. “Are you...jealous?”  
  
“Jealous! The only thing I’m jealous of is you letting him go!”  
  
“I can’t let you go, Rose. You don’t understand.”  
  
“The only reason I don’t understand is because you haven’t told me. I’m not an idiot, no matter what you think after fifty years spent with that reformed psychopath. I saw that memory of the Master’s - something happened to the other universe, and you thought I was responsible. But I don’t know why or how.”  
  
“You know. You must know something.”  
  
Rose’s eyes darted away briefly before flicking back to the Doctor. “I don’t know much.”  
  
One of his eyebrows shot up. “So you know about the Bad Wolf? That you still have a piece of the TARDIS inside of you?”  
  
“Like I said, Doctor, I’m not an idiot. I knew something was going on with me, but I didn’t trust the Torchwood in Pete’s world to investigate it without turning me into a laboratory rat, and the only other person I could ask was in another universe! Why do you think I wanted to get back here so badly? We built this Dimension Cannon -”  
  
He looked so pained suddenly, like he was remembering something that had hurt him. She narrowed her eyes. “You already know about all this, don’t you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Did you take me out of my proper timeline? Is that why I feel so strange all the time, like something’s not right?”  
  
He swallowed visibly and said, “Yes.”  
  
“And so now Pete’s world is full of reapers eating everyone in sight? Including my mum and my little brother?”  
  
“No! Rose, I had to remove you from that universe. You yourself were the danger to it. Once you were gone it reverted back to normal, no collapse. If I’d left you on the timeline you were on, the whole universe would have disappeared and your mum and brother with it.”  
  
“So I never made it back. The Dimension Cannon didn’t work.”  
  
He chuckled. “It worked too well, Rose. Well enough to permanently damage the barrier between this universe and that one.”  
  
“But I never found you, Doctor.”  
  
“You did.”  
  
She stared at him, gripping the cold metal edge of the bench. “I don’t remember that.”  
  
“It never happens, now. Never happened. English isn’t the greatest language for talking about time travel, you’ve probably noticed.”  
  
“So how are we not being eaten by angry space-time dragons?”  
  
“I don’t know, Rose. Why don’t you tell me?”  
  
There was a long silence between them before Rose looked up. “There’s nothing more I haven’t told you. You keep talking like I should already understand what’s going on, but I don’t. You think I’m dangerous, but I’m not the one running around causing paradoxes! Why did you do it? Wasn’t there another way?”  
  
The Doctor leaned forward, his forehead resting between the bars. His eyes were cold and his voice was low. “I’ve spent almost a millenia saving the universe and fixing its mistakes, and you know what I get in return? Nothing. Just pain, and suffering, and everyone I’ve ever loved ripped away from me. Damaged, by me, by being with me. I’ve spent fifty years repairing the psyche of the only other remaining member of my species and all he wants is to get away from me. I saw your future, I realized what it meant, and I realized that for once in my life I could fix something and get what I wanted too.”  
  
“And you assumed I wanted this.”  
  
“If you were considering your alternatives, yes, I think you do want this.”  
  
“And you assume I still want you.”  
  
He hesitated for a moment. “Rose. We’re bonded. I can sense your emotions. I don’t think you still want me. I know you do.”  
  
“I don’t care what you think you sense. Why would I still want you? You’re a ... wanker. A cheater. An abandoner. A rapist,” she added, almost as an afterthought.  
  
His eyes darkened. “Rapist? Don’t tell me you didn’t want it, every single time.”  
  
“Just because you can read my mind doesn’t mean you have my consent. If I say no, it means no.”  
  
“On Earth. Parts of Earth, even. Not on Gallifrey,” he said dismissively.  
  
“Gallifrey is gone,” she pointed out, and then her hand flew to her mouth. She had tried to skate her conversation on the thin ice between annoying him and enraging him and she suspected she’d just broken through.  
  
The Doctor took a step back, shoving his hands into his pockets as though considering something. Then he began to remove his clothing. First his long coat, dropped into a puddle at his feet. It was shortly joined by his jacket, shirt and trousers. She watched as his skin was revealed, her mouth dry. He was hard already, his erection jutting toward his navel. He yanked his shoes and socks off, tossing them on top of the pile.  
  
“It’s true,” he said, completely casually, as he opened the cell door and stepped inside. “Gallifrey is gone. Which means there’s no one left to punish me for doing things like this.”  
  
She would have shrunk back if she could have, but the wall behind her was cold and there was no place to go inside the little cell. She took a deep breath to calm herself. It was all part of the plan.  
  
“I can’t quite read your mind, unless we’re touching. But I know you look at me and you feel lust. I know you like it when we argue, that it turns you on. I can smell your arousal from across the room. I know that if I have you right here in this dark little cell, you’ll fight me, and you’ll love every second of it. I know you’d like it if I shoved you up against those cold stones and pushed myself inside you right now.”  
  
She swallowed hard as he moved toward her. This was it, her one chance. She couldn’t get it wrong now.  
  
****  
  
He was on her, his body relatively warm in the cold of the dungeon. He grabbed the hem of her shirt and tried to force it over her head. She shoved him away hard, succeeding only in pushing him a few inches away from her. He was on her again in an instant, tearing at her shirt and ripping it nearly halfway down the middle. He moved to the zip on her jeans and shoved them down. She tried to flip around to stop him. He grabbed at her, trying to turn her back around. He was so occupied with stopping her show of physical resistance that he didn’t notice the chains clapping together around his wrists until she nearly had them locked shut.  
  
“Rose, what are you - “  
  
She moved faster than he’d known she was capable of and then his ankles were locked in the same kind of setup. He was on his back on the metal bench. She must have been hiding these restraints, he realized. That was why she hadn’t ever moved from the spot she’d been sitting in. He twisted one of his wrists around and realized with astonishment that he wasn’t tied with heavy chains, but instead some sort of thick rope, worked together in large loops. The last loop was attached to a heavy ring, set into the stones at the end of the shelf.  
  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”  
  
“Just a little tit-for-tat, Doctor. Why? Can’t you handle it?”  
  
He glared at her. “Rose, you know perfectly well a couple of ropes won't hold me. And I’m not human, I don’t play sex games.”  
  
Rose actually guffawed. “I do know! That's why I asked the TARDIS for something stronger. I dunno where those things came from, but the TARDIS told me they'd keep you where I wanted you for as long as I wanted you there.” She pulled her jeans back up and adjusted her torn blouse as best she could. As her laugh calmed to a chuckle, she added, “And who said anything about sex games? You’re the only naked one here.”  
  
He grimaced. The TARDIS must have given her those old boat-ties from Cerean. They looked like rope, but were a thousand times stronger than the simple hemp ropes used on Earth. Had to be, to keep boats in place during the hellacious storms that rocked most of the planet's oceans every winter. He sent crimson, angry thoughts at the TARDIS and she gave him the mental equivalent of a shrug. Surreptitiously he tugged on them with his wrists, and couldn't get them to move at all.  
  
While he'd been thinking resentful thoughts about his magnificent time-ship, Rose had disappeared. She hadn't bothered to mention when she would be back to let him out. He could sense her, already three rooms away and moving towards the TARDIS door. He didn't bother shouting after her. He could already tell she wouldn't listen.  
  
****  
  
His time-sense informed him that Rose had been gone for exactly thirty-two minutes and fifty-three seconds when she reappeared outside the cell door. It had felt like hours, alone and cold, both his telepathic connections heavily shielded from him by the barriers around the dungeon. He’d never removed them after the Master’s sojourn down here. He could never be sure he wouldn’t have to throw the arrogant ass down here again on short notice.  
  
Rose slipped back inside the cell. She was fully clothed again, wearing a long red dress tied in a halter around her neck. Her feet were bare. To his annoyance, he realized that she hadn’t even locked the door behind her.  
  
“I see you tried to escape,” Rose said, her mouth quirking in amusement. “I should have expected you wouldn’t listen.”  
  
“I get it, Rose, you’ve proved your point. I won’t lock you away anymore, I promise. Now can you please let me out?”  
  
“Oh, no, Doctor. I just went to get a few supplies and now I’ve come to get what I was really after all along.”  
  
“And what’s that?”  
  
“I can’t trust you anymore, that’s what these last days have taught me. You’ve broken that, irreparably. But we’re bonded together, I know, and I have to live with that.”  
  
“I’m - I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to -”  
  
She continued on as though he hadn’t said anything. Her hands went to the hem of her dress and he watched, transfixed, as she pulled it over her head. The dim lights cast shadows along her body and her face. He couldn’t see her eyes. “That doesn’t mean I have to live it the way you’ve decided is right.”  
  
She closed the distance between them and eyed him. He was soft, his erection having long since given up on satisfaction. “I think we’re going to need this,” she said, and took him in hand.  
  
He groaned at the sensation of her hot little fingers on him, but furiously pushed back the torrent of blood his brain was attempting to send in that direction. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Really? And I thought you’d had so little control, what with blocking my side of the link and all.”  
  
His eyes widened in horror. He shouldn’t be shocked he had figured it out, he supposed, between the Master and the TARDIS she’d apparently gotten enough information to make the connection. But she didn’t understand why he’d done what he’d done.  
  
“Rose - “ he began frantically, as she lowered her head and enveloped his cock in her velvety hot mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head as she stroked the underside of his softened shaft with her tongue. He tried to speak as he lost the will to control his biological impulses. “You don’t understand, there’s a reason I -”  
  
She stopped and pulled away, admiring her handiwork as the cold air of the dungeon hit him and he hardened even more. “Don’t care, Doctor. You said I’m yours. You’ve denied me what’s mine. And now I’m going to take it.”  
  
With that she threw one leg over him, grabbing his cock with one hand and directing it inside her. He let out a strangled moan and was unable to stop himself from giving a quick thrust up into her heat. She began to raise herself up and lower herself down, sighing with pleasure. For a moment he allowed himself to believe that that was all she wanted; control over their sexual encounters. He could give her that, it wasn’t too much to ask. It was a sweet delusion, tied to a cold metal bench like he was.  
  
Then she smiled down at him. Something in her smile sent a chill down his spine. Without breaking her stride, she reached for his temples with both hands. He flinched and threw his head to the side, knowing it was futile as he shouted, “Rose, no! No! Don’t you dare, don’t even try it!”  
  
It was too late as she slid into his wide-open mind and they fell together into the abyss.

 


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor was hiding from her.

She was inside his mind, just as he’d been in hers so many times since they’d been reunited. It was a dizzying place, full of catacombs and dusty old corridors and strange caves filled with howling winds. He couldn’t keep her out of his memories, and she’d seen plenty already. Things he’d done since they’d been separated, and things he had done centuries ago. Things that he had done whose history existed only in his mind now, the Time War having rewritten so many futures. She knew now why he hid such sadness and loneliness behind his warm brown eyes.

While she could freely wander the library of memories contained within his brain, she couldn’t find him - his essence. Where could he be? This place was so vast she wondered if it might not be infinite, like the inside of the TARDIS. She would have to find him to complete their link. She closed her eyes for a moment. The feeling of her brain rearranging itself within her skull was so strange, information and skills and muscle memory falling into place as though they’d always been there.

Unstable, the TARDIS whispered in her mind. Complete the bond. Make your mark.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. The Doctor wasn’t going to make it easy on either of them, that was for sure. The TARDIS had impressed upon her how disastrous it would be if she failed at this, but whatever else had happened, she didn’t want to force it on him the way he had on her. They would do this together, or not at all, consequences be damned.

The TARDIS sent her an image of the Doctor tied down in the dungeon and she smirked a little. “That was just payback. You have to admit he had it coming.”

The old girl sent an image of the specialized restraints she’d provided and Rose chuckled.

The TARDIS admonished her, and reminded her that her time was limited. She sent a pulse of acknowledgement and the TARDIS faded from her again. She had to find the Doctor, but she had no idea where to start.

There were so many avenues to explore, things she realized even the Doctor hadn’t thought about for hundreds of years. A part of her wanted it all, everything he’d seen, everything he’d done, but she resisted. She needed to know what he was hiding from her. It couldn’t simply be fifty years without a human companion to make him change the way he had. The man she’d loved long ago would never have done what the Doctor had done.

The niggling little portion of her brain, the one that always reminded her of things she didn’t want to think about, wondered if she’d ever really known him. Barely three years together, all told, and then that awful beach. Now she was here, in his mind, and it was vast. How could she ever really have known someone so much bigger than she was?

Rose forced those thoughts away. She consciously focused her mind on finding what had happened to him since they’d been separated. All she had to do was think of what she wanted to see, and the memories flew past as fast as her brain could process them.

She watched a ginger in a wedding gown yank Rose’s own purple blouse off the TARDIS rail and wave it in the Doctor’s face. She saw him kiss a beautiful black girl in a lab coat and quashed an unbidden pang of jealousy. She witnessed the girl (Martha, the memory supplied helpfully) help a crippled Doctor overcome the Master in his throes of madness. She saw him weeping, rocking the still body of his dead friend. Then that ginger (Donna) again, running from the Ood. And then herself - visibly older than she was now, cultivating a deadly calm. Rose barely recognized herself. What would have happened to her on all those trips to alternate universes and times? How many trips had it taken her before she finally found the Doctor again?

Then another memory filtered through; the Doctor, dying in her arms as she begged him not to regenerate. Then there were suddenly two of him, one in the brown pinstripes she knew so well and another in blue. The three of them stood on a beach together, and she watched as the other her kissed the Doctor in blue. She watched the Time Lord leave her on the beach with the mortal copy of himself, and then retreat to the TARDIS to erase Donna’s memories before the brain damage killed her. She saw a good woman kill herself to put right the timelines the Doctor had deliberately skewed. Then it was the Master again, madder than ever, and the Doctor’s terror at the return of the Time Lords. She watched as the Master attacked Rassilon and was sucked toward the other Time Lords as the Time Lock began to reassert itself. Then, with a jolt as though she’d skipped a chapter on a DVD, she was back in that enormous cave.

The wind blew her hair around her face. Wherever she’d landed was dark and dusty. Things he preferred to forget, she mused. Something glowed ominously at the back of this portion of cave. She moved forward, her feet leaving trails in the chalky dust.

Laying askew against the back wall was a large metal chest, its padlock cracked and broken. Its contents glowed an eerie green and orange. She frowned. Something he was trying to keep himself from remembering, but unsuccessfully. Hesitant, thinking of the awful things she’d glimpsed in some of his other memories, she approached it slowly.

Before she could even touch it it opened wide, and she fell into a swirling morass of toxic memories.

****

She was on some kind of military vessel by the look of it. Long corridors dimly lit and undecorated and the feeling of movement, the vibration of engines, as though she was in a plane. It didn’t look like any plane Rose had ever seen. With a jolt, she realized wherever this was, she was there, not just watching from a third-person perspective.

Rose wasn’t simply watching this memory, as she had the others. She was living it.

She was startled to look down at herself and see what she guessed was a maid’s uniform. A thick black knee-length dress with white cuffs. She was even more surprised by the tone of the skin on her shapely hands; a warm golden brown.

As she watched, the hands picked up a wooden tray and balanced its small load carefully. She didn’t look down, but straight ahead as she walked down a long, narrow hallway. Rose could not control how she - or whoever's this memory was - reacted, but she felt everything her counterpart felt.

Right down to the cold watery fear that washed over her when someone yanked her arm and turned her around, his other hand grabbing her face. The tray clattered to the ground, the cold mush splattering out of its bowl and onto the wall. She recognized the man immediately. His face and his clothing hadn’t changed. The Master.

“The freak won’t be needing his dinner today, I’m afraid. That Sontaran grenade I took from his office blew him into so many pieces, it’s going to take him at least an hour to regrow his body.”

He stared at her. There was a cold emptiness to his eyes she didn’t recognize. The Doctor had told her he was sick, but he looked mad to her. Was it the drums? She had seen the memory, she knew that the other Time Lords had manipulated and poisoned the Doctor’s best friend in their attempt to save themselves from their fate.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, she realized where she was. She was on board that strange airship the Master had used to control Earth before the Doctor beat him and reversed the paradox. She still didn’t know whose memory this was.

“Tish, Tish, lovely Leticia,” the Master crooned, still forcing her up against the wall. “What am I going to do with you today?”

Rose - Tish - stiffened in fear. Rose had no idea what the Master liked to do to Tish, but she had a feeling neither of them were going to like it. The Master grabbed her arm, his grip like iron, and dragged her down the hall.

Opening a locked door, he thrust her in ahead of him and then closed and locked the door behind him. “Clean up this mess,” he said dismissively.

As the light switch flicked on she saw what the Master had done. Made that poor man swallow a grenade, from the looks of things. Bits of skin, flesh, hair and clothing were scattered everywhere across the room. Blood splashed the walls in an explosive pattern. There were larger chunks of flesh and bone remaining, lying on top of a set of heavy metal manacles. As she watched, the flesh quivered and two pieces fused back together. Tish shuddered. No matter how many times she'd seen it, she would never get used to this.

Tish - Rose - choked down the stomach acid rising into her throat and walked to the closet at the back of the room to retrieve cleaning supplies. She started with the walls, scrubbing the blood off them before going to the sink to rinse off her sponge. When she looked back, the body was even closer to reforming. There were visible limbs and a head now, though none of it had much in the way of skin. She shuddered again.

The Master was still in the room with them, watching her clean with a glint in his eye. She’d learned never to trust that glint. It meant he had something new and different in mind, and new and different never meant anything good for the humans.

The body on the floor let out a low moan. Tish nearly jumped out of her skin. It didn’t matter how many times she’d seen it happen, it was still a shock to watch a man die and reawaken as though nothing had happened.

This time, though, the Master had made quite certain things would be different. Regrowing this much of his body was an excruciating process; no simply waking up intact. Tish looked at them both warily before resuming scrubbing the blood off the walls. She knew the Master by now. There was a reason he’d kept them both in here and no doubt she wasn’t going to be happy about whatever it was.

“Tish, that’s enough.” Obediently, she dropped the sponge into the bloodstained water in the bucket and stood waiting. The Master approached her like a lion stalking its prey, and Tish knew exactly what prey felt like.

He circled her, studying her body. “Take off your clothes,” he said finally.

Tish wanted to choke out a no, to beg him for mercy, but she knew from long experience that it wouldn’t make any difference. It had been nearly a year for her on the Valiant, and the Master had only become more insane and depraved as time went on. She tried not to think of Martha, of how she’d never come back. She pulled her blouse over her head and unbuttoned the skirt and dropped it to the floor.

“All of it,” the Master said.

Rose decided she had had quite enough of this sick game of the Master’s, and the memory itself did not appear to have any answers as to why it was hidden away in the Doctor’s mind.

The problem was, she had no idea how to escape from it.

Once her knickers and bra were on the floor with the rest of her clothes, the Master pushed Tish - Rose forward toward the quivering mass of flesh on the floor. Tish began to scream. “No, please Master, no, anything but this, no, no, no, I can’t, I won’t.”

The Master pressed himself into her from behind and she started to sob. “Oh, but Tish, you know how much I love it when you beg.”

He steered her towards the body lying on the floor. Its eyes opened and a strangled moan came from its throat. Tish struggled, couldn’t not struggle even though her brain reminded her it was useless.

Rose knew she was feeling her own terror and Tish’s. She concentrated, focused her mind the way she had before. Out, out, back to the Doctor, out out out.

Nothing happened. She was still inside Tish and she had no desire to find out what was about to happen to the poor girl.

“Master,” the thing on the floor croaked. “Don’t do this to her. Let her go, and I’ll...”

“You’ll what?” the Master snorted. “You can’t do the one thing I really want you to do, and that’s die. Killing you’s getting boring, I’ve used every method I could think of, and some I just made up special for you, Jack. The Sontaran grenade, that’s made quite the mess. Miss Jones here was going to clean it up, but I thought of something better for her. Something more entertaining.”

Rose, inside her own mind, was screaming. Jack. I did this to him, this is my fault, oh God, Jack. Her anguish wasn’t felt by any of the actors in the scene. Jack couldn’t hear her begging apologies. The Master couldn’t feel her struggle against him with every ounce of strength she had. Tish didn’t know another woman was there inside her, witnessing her degradation first-hand.

As the Master pushed Tish onto her knees beside Jack, Rose felt a tingling sensation in the back of her mind, and then a yank, and the scene before her went black.

****

When she opened her eyes, she was back in the Doctor’s mind, and the Doctor was in front of her, his arms crossed and his eyes full of fury. “Enjoying yourself?” he snarled.

Rose took a deep breath, needing a moment to put herself back in the now, and forget where she’d been. She shivered. She could feel the anger radiating from the Doctor, which made sense, since they were literally inside his mind. It was like tiny, sharp stones pressing at her all over her body. She raised her head to look at him. To her great surprise, she realized he was wearing his blue suit.

“These aren’t your memories, Doctor,” she murmured. Why did he have them? She knew he could read people’s minds, but how did their memories come to be locked away in this chest in his mind? Had he copied them, somehow, or had he taken the memories from their owners?

“Obviously. I’ve never regenerated into a woman before.”

Rose blinked at that thought. Could he regenerate into a woman? Then she shook herself again. It was so difficult, balancing all the threads of thought and knowledge and hormones and impulses. She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to it. No wonder the Doctor got distracted so easily. “So why do you have...is she Martha’s sister? Why do you have Tish’s memories?”

“I took them. From Tish, from Martha’s parents, from everyone who was there that year who didn’t want to remember what happened. There are others in there, too, things from centuries ago, when the Master and I were both in different bodies. The memories of the Year That Never Was were merely the most recent.”

“But...couldn’t you just get rid of them? Why are they inside you now?”

“No. Memories are permanent, Rose. Even if they’re lost, they go somewhere else. They’re eternal, the only thing that’s eternal. There’s so much you don’t understand.”

“So now they’re just here...torturing you?” She could feel tears rising to her eyes and shook them away irritably. Crying in the middle of a metaphysical experience inside your soon-to-be-husband’s mind was just ridiculous.

“Yes. Well, no. I needed them. I had to make the Master feel the way you were just feeling. The way everyone he’s ever hurt has felt.”

Rose’s heart stuttered for a moment. “Was that...what fixed him?”

“If he is fixed, yes, that’s what did it.” The Doctor rubbed anxiously at the back of his neck. “I couldn’t think of another way. The drums were gone, but he was still so broken. So many years of madness. Torture wouldn’t work, nothing physical. He’s a Time Lord, we can ignore our bodies if we need to. Locking him away would just give him time to plot against me and whatever innocents he targeted next. The only thing that I thought might help...was making him feel, emotionally, what his victims felt.” The Doctor laughed dryly. “Time Lords are supposed to be above emotion too, you know, but we’re not. They teach us to bottle it up, never let it out. Some Time Lords managed their whole lives without admitting to a single personal feeling, but others...like me and the Master...we could never tame ourselves that way. I reveled in positive emotions, the Master in negative. But still, he never really felt what he’d done to his victims. They were toys to him, nothing more. I had to make him feel them. I had to make him be them.”

Rose was crying in earnest now, unable to stem the flow of saline. “But...didn’t you feel it too? It’s your mind we’re inside.”

“Yes,” he said dully. “I’ve never been able to really hide these memories from myself since then. They’re always slipping out at the worst times.”

She hugged herself, wanting to hug him but afraid he wouldn’t welcome it. Finally she said, “I can help.”

“No.”

“No, you don’t want me to, or no, you don’t think I’m capable?”

“Both. Neither. You’re human, Rose. You can’t take that type of mental torture for long. Why do you think I pulled you out when I heard you screaming? I warned you. I tried to keep you out of here. I was trying to protect you, Rose! Everything I’ve done has been to protect you.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t need protecting?”

“You need protecting more than ever. The vortex is still caught in your mind and you have no ability to control it. You could destroy me, the TARDIS, the universe, anything. That must be what happened on the other side. I wasn’t there to stop you, my clone wouldn’t have had full telepathy. I didn’t realize, I was too thick and I destroyed a whole universe because of it. You have to stay with me now, Rose. Otherwise...”

“The universe might collapse. Yes, I know,” Rose agreed. “For once in your life, Doctor, you’ll find that someone else knows more than you do.”

He looked down at her, his expression unreadable. Then he grabbed her arm. “You’re hiding something from me.”

“A lot of things,” she agreed. “I was even hiding them from myself, for awhile. But now that we’re here, we can talk. And when I’m done talking, you’re going to bind yourself to me willingly.”

He laughed softly. “Rose, you have no idea what you’re asking for. What you could...what I could do. What I’d be tempted to do.”

“I know you don’t believe me. That’s why we’re going to go back to my mind, and take a look around.” She grabbed his hand and closed her eyes.

When she reopened them, they were in her own mind. She felt dizzy for a moment and the Doctor steadied her. “Careful, now,” he murmured. “You haven’t any experience doing this.”

“That at least is true,” she said. “But I’m getting there. Take a look around.”

They were standing on a field of wavy, soft grass. The aroma drifting up to their noses identified it as apple grass. At the far end of the field was a range of mountains, so tall their tips were lost in the filmy clouds. The sky above them was a perfect cerulean blue. There was no sun visible, but everything was lit with clear white light.

The light reflected off several structures across the field from them. As they watched, the structures - like enormous beehives, Rose thought - grew and expanded, their height and circumference growing simultaneously.

“What is this? This can’t...”

Rolling her eyes at whatever the Doctor had been about to say, she yanked him with her towards the growing towers. The light glinted off their sides and reflected a rainbow back at them. The Doctor stopped and touched the exterior, jumping back when a yellow spark flew at him.

“I know you don’t recognize it yet. It’s changed, since the last time you were here. It’s going to keep changing more.”

She found a door and pressed her palm to the flat surface. It dissolved under her touch and she pulled the Doctor, still openly gawking, into the tower with her.

Inside the crystalline tower there were books. Books and books and books, on shelves and in piles, everywhere. And wherever he looked the piles only grew fatter and the shelves taller, as the library grew before her eyes.

“Doctor, look,” she said firmly. “Really look.”

“It’s...it’s your mind,” he said weakly. “I can see that now. But...how is this even possible?” the Doctor breathed.

“You did it,” Rose said. “Well, we did, the three of us. I bonded with the TARDIS when I opened her heart to save you. You bonded with me and started the process to change me.”

“Change you...into a Gallifreyan?”

“No, we’re too biologically dissimilar for that. Plus, I’m human. I like being a stupid ape, Doctor.”

“Then what are you? What can you possibly be?”

“I’m the Bad Wolf,” she said. “I created myself. I can do anything.”


	9. Chapter 9

  
  
The Doctor saw Rose before him, but in his mind’s eye he saw her eons in the future and years in their past, stepping out of the TARDIS into the charnel house of the Gamestation. Her eyes glowed golden and her face was streaked with tears. She spoke not as a human being but as a god, imbued with all the power of the cosmos.  
  
 _Everything must come to dust... all things. Everything dies._  
  
He had been a different man then, in so many ways. He had been ready to die and then Rose Tyler had appeared and taken a grieving shell of a Time Lord and made him want to be worthy of her. Her mind had intrigued him more than her physical beauty. She was so young and prone to making mistakes, but he couldn’t blame her. She wasn’t much more than a child, even by her own people’s standards. Like a child she adapted easily to his lifestyle, running with him and stealing his heart away in the process.  
  
And then she stepped out of the TARDIS and saved him and ruined him at the same time. Saved him from the Daleks and the Delta wave. Ruined him because at that moment he knew she loved him as much as he loved her. He pleaded with her to release the power and she refused.  
  
 _How can I let go of this? I bring life..._  
  
The Doctor knew all too well after centuries traveling the universe that power corrupted. If he believed anyone could overcome that universal truth, it was his pink and yellow London estate girl. The Doctor, though...the longer he'd spent with the Master, the more he'd been tempted. So tempted, in fact, that when he saw the power inside Rose he'd shut himself off from her immediately. He couldn't risk her seeing and knowing what he'd been tempted to do. He didn’t want to admit that he was afraid of himself, and of her. She couldn’t know what lurked inside him. The darkness had always been there, but it was closer to the surface than ever, so much closer than it had been in his ninth incarnation, even after the war. Now the Doctor was terrified of losing control. He was even more afraid of the part of him that wanted to lose control.  
  
Now he wondered what Rose knew so many years ago in his own timeline. How far had she seen, when she’d called herself Bad Wolf? Had she been able to see her own timeline, or his? It was supposed to be impossible, but she’d told him she could do anything, and he was inclined to believe her. Her timeline had been lost to him when he fell in love with her, and he had known something was about to happen to Rose, but he didn’t know what it was until he saw her fingers slipping off the magnet clamp. Had she seen that future and allowed it? Had she predicted this too? He tugged at his ear, watching her carefully. Her face was streaked with tears again, mascara trailing down beneath her eyes. This wasn’t real, any of it. Why was she crying? Why was her mascara running? Was she trying to tell him something?  
  
“This isn’t possible. You should be burning, not rebuilding yourself.”  
  
“You keep saying this word possible. I do not think it means what you think it means.”  
  
“I’m not joking, Rose! You should be dead!” He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to him. They were still connected together and technically, there were no rules or laws of physics here. Nonetheless everything felt real, as though they were acting on the physical plane as well as the mental. He could feel her heart hammering in her chest, belying her calm exterior demeanor.  
  
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, I should be dead. I should have died when I opened the heart of the TARDIS, but I didn’t. I should have died before we ever made it back to the Gamestation. She took a piece of me, but she gave me a piece of herself in return. You couldn’t take it from me because it became a part of me. We hid it, deep inside me. We hid a lot of things.”  
  
He didn’t even know where to start addressing that. There was no way she’d be able to live with that kind of power inside her all the time, no matter what she or the TARDIS thought. Even if she restructured her mind to understand space and time in the same way the Doctor did, she would certainly go mad. “But why...how did you hide it from me? I ran all those tests on you after the Sycorax and there was nothing wrong with you, nothing out of the ordinary. I spent more than a year with you after that. I scanned you in Pete’s world before you noticed me on the street that day. Aside from residual traces of the vortex and the void you were a completely normal  _homo sapiens sapiens_ , circa the early twenty-first century.”  
  
When he looked at her again her eyes were wide and far away. “Rose?” She startled and looked at him, her eyes still wide. “Something wrong?”  
  
“No, I just got a big download. In a manner of speaking.”  
  
He wanted to press her about that, of course - download of what? - when her cheeks suddenly reddened. “Um. Doctor. I really have to say I’m sorry about this.” Before he could sputter anything, she pressed on. “I mean - I didn’t - I’m sort of an amateur at this whole god-thing. I didn’t quite mean it to happen this way.”  
  
“Obviously,” the Doctor muttered and she crooked her head at him and smiled.  
  
“There’s something else I want to show you,” Rose said, wiggling her fingers and offering him her hand. He eyed her skeptically before clasping her hand. He wondered if he was as confusing and hard to follow when he was regenerating. Regenerating was effectively what she was doing, he realized. Using the artron energy at her command to remake herself into some new, hybrid creature.  
  
Before he could so much as blink, they were in a gritty urban playground, the light bright and hot as though it was noon. Gravel crunched under their feet. The earth was paved, grass a luxury deemed unnecessary. In the distance he recognized the familiar shapes of the run-down buildings of the Powell Estate. The Doctor reached out and touched the metal slide; it was warm from the sun. “Where are we now?” he asked obligingly. He didn’t know what to make of her sudden subject change: was it intentional, or was her mind being affected already?  
  
Rose let go of his hand and walked over to the swingset, sitting down and using her legs to propel herself gently back and forth. She patted the black rubber seat next to her and he walked over and sat down.  
  
“This is my safe place,” she said. “Where I can go if I’m afraid, or if I need to hide, or if I need to protect myself.”  
  
He glanced toward the street; there was no traffic, no cars or pedestrians to intrude on them. “I have a safe place, too,” he admitted.  
  
“I know, I saw it. Red skies and orange grass. Is it Gallifrey?”  
  
He swallowed hard. He didn’t understand what she was trying to tell him. “Yes, my family’s estate, where I lived as a young child.”  
  
She smiled. “We’re going to need these spaces. That’s why I built this first.”  
  
The Doctor nodded. He never used the safe place in his mind anymore; it had been ruined for him by the Master during the Year That Never Was. In his madness the other man had invaded his mind, desecrating his hiding place and declaring he didn’t want the Doctor to be able to hide from him, even within his own mind. Weak as he had been, the Doctor had been unable to stop him. He had never tried to rebuild it. There were simply too many painful memories associated with it to be able to make it safe again.  
  
“You’re remaking yourself,” he said out loud. “What exactly did you do?”  
  
She shrugged. "Not that much. Changed my brain around, made it bigger on the inside. Expanded my telepathic abilities. Mutated my DNA a bit.”  
  
“But you’ve got the Vortex inside you, I saw it. How can you survive the prolonged exposure? Your cells, they don’t age. I couldn’t even believe the test results when I saw them. I don’t know whether or not you can even die or if you’re like Jack." The horror in his voice at that thought was audible to Rose and she stopped short, digging her heels into the gravel and reaching across to tug his hand.  
  
“Can’t be, or you’d feel it, wouldn’t you?” she asked, then paled as the memory of what she’d done to him returned to her. “Jack,” she whispered. “I’d forgotten. Why does it happen like that, Doctor? Why...if we can see the future, all the futures, why can’t we get things right?”  
  
“That  _was_  Jack’s future,” the Doctor said bleakly. “It always was. I was too close to him. The closer you get to someone, the harder it is to see their future. That's why...it always seems to go wrong for the ones I love. They're the ones I can never save."  
  
She squeezed harder, her fingers warm and soft between his cool bony ones. “I saw Donna. You saved her.”  
  
His face shuttered. “Saved her, killed her, same thing. The person she’d become was lost.”  
  
"I know," Rose said. "But in this universe, that never happened."  
  
"What do you mean,  _in this universe_?” He dropped her hand and stood up, looking down at her.  
  
“Oh, did I forget to explain that part? Blimey, I’m really bad at this, Doctor, I can’t juggle all these thoughts at once yet.” She shook her head as though trying to dislodge internal cobwebs. “When I was everywhere, I saw that there would be a me who found you again, and that you might...well, be scared, and send me home. If you’d just done that, things would have been all right. But there was the metacrisis, and in all the timelines where a metacrisis was created, both our original universe and Pete’s world would have been destroyed. Pete’s world, by me accidentally, and our universe, by you trying to bring me back. So I created a third option for us, a way to avoid the damage we’d cause to both the universes."  
  
"What are you trying to tell me?"  
  
"When we left Pete's world, we didn't go back to our original universe. We created a new one. That's where we are now. In our universe. Rose’s world!" She smiled. “I like the sound of that.”  
  
The Doctor's fingers found his hair and tugged at it so hard he felt several strands pull free into his fingers. "That's impossible, Rose!"  
  
"Nothing's impossible, Doctor. How many impossible things have you done?”  
  
He started babbling then, barely aware of the words falling from his mouth, about entropy and states of matter and atomic decay and all sorts of things that made creating a new universe out of thin air completely and totally impossible. How it would inevitably collapse due to instability, no matter what they did. How their TARDISes would struggle to adapt to the subtly different laws of physics in this universe.  
  
“Actually it’s fairly stable, Doctor. There’s just one problem. I need you, we need you. You have all the knowledge about how to follow timelines. I’m restructuring myself, but I need access to your mind as a sort of blueprint. And I need you. I need you to anchor me. The Vortex, it’s so easy to get lost in it. With the marriage bond completed, I’ll always be linked to you. I’ll always be able to find my way back.”  
  
“And what if I say no?”  
  
She shrugged, as though she didn’t care what decision he made. “This universe will collapse.”  
  
“So I have no choice.”  
  
For the first time since she’d forced her way into his mind, she seemed upset. “This all happened to begin with because I was trying to give you a choice! I could have changed time so that we’d be together forever, but I didn’t know if you’d want that. I was so tired of you making my decisions for me. You didn’t even consider asking before you sent me home to my mum. The last thing I wanted to do was force you to do something you didn’t want to do.”  
  
“That’s exactly what you’re doing, Rose. I don’t want this. I’m -” he cut himself off, unsure of what he’d been about to confess to her.  
  
“You’re the one that started it, pulled me from Pete’s world and bonded with me. I used the bond as the trigger for the changes to begin. How could I have known that you would force a half-formed bond on me?”  
  
“That’s the point, Rose! You saw, but you didn’t see. You have no training, no natural ability to do this. I had a hundred years in the academy and it still took years before - “  
  
Rose suddenly flinched and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose hard. “What is it?”  
  
“My head,” she muttered. “The knowledge from the TARDIS and the things I hid from myself - it’s like this conversation is a trigger and certain words - “ she lapsed and grunted in obvious pain. He hesitated, his hands reaching for her unconsciously. “Oh. Oh! Ugh! This was not the moment I wanted to remember that!”  
  
“What? Who are you talking to?”  
  
She gave him a guilty look. “I just remembered...I may have...planted the idea for you to bond with me in the first place.”  
  
At the look on his face, she added, “I don’t mean I did it on purpose. But I was thinking about it when you kissed me. When the last you took the Vortex from me. I was hoping that one day you’d kiss me again, that you’d want what I knew I could offer you. A true bond, like and unlike what your people had.”  
  
He gaped at her. “Did you know that my regeneration could be influenced by the people around me?”  
  
“No! No, I didn’t think about regeneration. I didn’t know about it then.”  
  
“If you didn’t know about it how did you plan this?” he gestured to himself. “I’m not the same me you saw?”  
  
“In the timelines I saw, you were still...leather jacket you.”  
  
“Maybe that’s why things have gone awry,” he mused, sounding a bit more like his old self. “When I regenerated things became subtly different. I was the same man, but I didn’t necessarily make the same decisions.” He paced back and forth and kicked at the gravel in frustration. “This is why you can’t - you can’t do this, can’t become this, Rose! You could have caused the collapse of this whole universe!”  
  
  
“I didn’t know you were going to prevent us from forming a full bond!”  
  
“That’s not what I mean! You think you saw enough, understood enough, to plan out multiple futures and get what you wanted. But you didn’t even see that I was going to take the Vortex from you and regenerate!”  
  
“Because you didn’t need to take it from me! It wouldn’t have killed me!”  
  
“It was killing you, Rose. You wouldn’t let it go.”  
  
She took a step back abruptly. “I - I don’t remember that.”  
  
“It’s true. I - I know I’ve lied to you about a lot of things lately, but I’m not lying about this. This is wrong, this can’t happen. We have to go back to our universe. We have to set this right.”  
  
Rose cringed and opened her mouth to speak before gripping her face in her palms again. “Oh,” she whimpered. “Doctor, it hurts.”  
  
“What hurts? Your head?”  
  
She never answered him. The Doctor watched with alarm as the playground around them flickered and vanished into nothing. He spun around once before realizing that Rose had disappeared too. There was nothing but the absolute darkness. What was happening to Rose’s mind? Where had she gone?  
  
A loud, clanging boom echoed through the endless space. He couldn’t fail to recognize the cloister bell. He spun around again before closing his eyes and concentrating hard; he couldn’t be trapped here now, not when something was going on outside their minds.  
  
With the strongest telepathic effort the Doctor had expended since the Year That Never Was, he wrenched himself free of Rose’s mind. It was like removing something that had attached itself beneath his flesh, and there was a moment of blinding pain before he felt himself fully back in his own body.  
  
He woke still chained to the wall, Rose motionless and unnaturally cold on top of him. Her skin was pale and he couldn’t see or feel her chest move. He shifted, as much as he could, and she murmured something, her body twitching. The surge of adrenaline he’d felt subsided. She was still alive. But he doubted she would be for long if he couldn’t stop her whole mind from collapsing. He shouted her name, but got no reaction.  
  
The cloister bell rang again, loud and threatening. “What, what!” the Doctor shouted at the ceiling. “I don’t know what you need from me! I can’t help you when I’m tied up!”  
  
There was a feeling of mild chagrin in his mind as the Cerean ship-ropes detached from the wall. The Doctor gasped as full sensation returned to his stretched limbs. He immediately wrapped his arms around Rose’s nude form and sat up, shifting her to lie on the metal shelf. Ignoring his own state of undress - where had his clothes got to, anyway? - he touched her neck, feeling for her pulse. It was there, but far too fast for her species. Her breaths were shallow and irregular. He didn’t have his sonic to run a scan of her body; he assumed it was with his clothes, wherever they were.  
  
With few options available to him, he knelt and lifted her into his arms. Her head lolled against his chest, her flesh still unusually cool against his.  
  
 _Med bay_ , he thought at the TARDIS as he pushed the cell door open and ran back toward the hall. Being helpful for the first time in a long time, she moved the med bay directly into his path. He skidded through the door and put Rose on the bed inside, activating the medical equipment embedded in the bed and in the ceiling above it.  
  
  
The scan had just begun when there was a familiar whooshing sound. The Doctor’s eyes widened in horror. They were landing; why were they landing? Where were they landing? Who was controlling the TARDIS?  
  
For a moment he hesitated at the door; he didn’t want to leave Rose, but he needed the console room to see where they’d landed. Pleading with the TARDIS again, he felt her acquiesce to his request to move the console room next to the med bay. As soon as the familiar rotunda appeared he ran for it, his fingers moving with the unconscious ease of centuries over the keys.  
  
“Kellisarium? Why are we back there?” Was she simply bringing them back to the last place they’d visited or was there another reason?  
  
The TARDIS sent him an image of the Master. “What - he’s here? Making trouble?”  
  
An affirming pulse.  
  
“And what am I supposed to do about that, with Rose dying in the next room?”  
  
The TARDIS sent him an image of a wedding gown.  
  
“I can’t bond with her now, she’s not even conscious! She’s the one who has to finish the bond!”  
  
There was a ding from the other room and the Doctor raced back to the med bay. Rose hadn’t moved, but the scans had finished. He ran his finger down the screen as he read the results, his guts churning with fear. The new structure for her mind had been left unfinished and was collapsing. Right now it was wiping away the new knowledge she’d obtained in ways he still didn’t fully understand, but soon it would move on to her actual memories, and then to her inner brain and her core bodily functions. Her breathing and her heart would stop. All the physical changes were easily reversible with the life-support equipment he had on board, but there was nothing he could do about her brain. He might be able to save her body, but if he couldn’t stop the destruction of her mind, she’d wind up brain-dead.  
  
Unbidden, tears welled in his eyes. He’d screamed at her for biting off more than she could possibly chew, but hadn’t he done the same exact thing when he’d caused a paradox to retrieve her? And he may have told her he’d done it to save that other universe, but his deeper motivation had always been selfish. He wanted her back, in his arms, in his bed. He even wanted what she’d offered him moments ago, her mind, fully and completely. At the end of the day this was all his fault; his fault for finding her and bringing her along, his fault for loving her, for allowing her to fall in love with him. Even if Rose’s methods had been unsound, she had at least meant well.  
  
No, it was his selfishness that had led him to this point. Now he had lost the Master and was about to lose Rose.  
  
He felt the TARDIS in the back of his mind again. This time the image was one of a marital bed, covered in rose petals. She pushed it forward into him again and again, emphasizing its importance. “All right, all right, I’ll try,” he muttered. At least she would die comfortably, in his arms. That was all he could offer her now.  
  
He scooped her into his arms and swept toward his bedroom.

 


	10. Chapter 10

  
The journey back to consciousness was long and arduous. It felt nearly as long as the day when he’d doomed his people to live their deaths over and over again for a second time. As the Doctor awakened his time sense returned, and he realized it was hours later on the same day.  
  
The first external stimulus he really became aware of was the sound of the Master grumbling. “Bloody humans, always getting themselves into the stupidest predicaments. Did you think I’d build this and not put in a fail-safe?”  
  
There was a long pause, and then a familiar, slightly wobbly voice said, “I wouldn’t have been surprised either way.”  
  
The Master snorted. “What if I’d been the one stuck in there? I like this body. I intend to keep it. Rassilon knows how many regenerations I’ve even got left. Ugh, Rassilon. I suppose I should have known he’d be such an arse.”  
  
“Mas - Sir - you - alien, the countdown...”  
  
“I’d work faster if you weren’t annoying me with useless reminders. I know exactly how much time is left. Now shut up.”  
  
The Doctor opened his eyes, finally feeling the bone-deep pain wracking his whole body. He supposed it was no surprise; that fall had been a nasty one and he hadn’t even been sure he’d survive while gravity pulled him toward the ground . Another, similar fall had killed him once. Luckily this time the glass skylight he’d broken through had slowed him enough to save his life and use the last of his energy to send the Time Lords back where they belonged. Now he could feel his body working to heal the wounds, though it would most likely take a day or two to fix them all if he didn’t use the dermal regenerator in the TARDIS.  
  
He stared at the floor under his face. He could see glass and other debris scattered around and carefully avoided it as he moved his arms around to push himself onto his knees.  
  
Without turning to look at him the Master said, “Oh good, you’re finally awake. I was starting to worry you were going to die on me again, and then who would I have left to torment? Your new body, I suppose, but what if it was even more emo than this one? Now get over here and help me fix this so we can get your idiot ape friend out of there before we all get irradiated. I’m not planning on regenerating today.”  
  
The Master was at the control panel with the Doctor’s sonic in his hand, aiming a subsonic pulse at several mechanical components. Wilf was still trapped inside the glass case. His eyes widened at seeing the Doctor. “You’re alive!”  
  
“Time Lord,” the Doctor said gruffly. “Hard to kill. You all right?”  
  
“Oh yes, sir, just fine. The...the Master says he can get me out of here without releasing all the radiation.”  
  
The Doctor frowned. He couldn’t imagine the Master working to release Wilf out of the goodness of his own heart, since his heart hadn’t had any goodness in it for ages. Eons, even. The Master glanced at him, seeming to realize what he was thinking. “If the pressure doesn’t get released that radiation will flood this whole room, not just that glass case. It’s been too long, the pressure is too high. I didn’t get here soon enough for a simple fix.”  
  
“How did you escape the Time Lock? I saw you - I saw you fall in with them, after you attacked Rassilon.”  
  
“Not quite sure, really. I was falling backwards with those sickeningly self-righteous ninnies, looking forward to living the same awful day over and over again, my time sense hurt like nothing I’ve felt before, and then something gave me a hard shove and I fell back out into this day just as the Lock sealed shut.”  
  
The Doctor was silent for a moment, thinking of the woman he’d seen and the look of pride and sadness on her face. He’d have known his mother anywhere, no matter the body she wore. Had she had something to do with the Master’s escape? He wouldn’t be surprised. If anyone had ever been a bigger troublemaker than the Doctor, it was his mother Armalendanorvar. She had known, too, of the strange bond between her son and his childhood friend, spanning decades and fraying and twisting like old thread, without ever snapping. If Rassilon’s council had gained knowledge of his actions outside the Time Lock, it stood to reason she could have done the same.  
  
He said nothing, though, instead wobbling unsteadily toward the Master, watching what he was doing with his sonic. “Where’s yours?”  
  
“Back on Gallifrey, most likely.”  
  
“Well, you’ve got setting 506 and you probably want 606.”  
  
The Master stopped what he was doing and turned to glare at the Doctor. “Why would you change it from the default?”  
  
“Oh, you know me, always inventing new settings, have to find a place for them. Might try 1283, too, the wavelength’s a bit lower.”  
  
There was a throat-clearing noise from Wilf. “I know I’ve been told to shut up, but the countdown is showing one minute.”  
  
The Doctor and the Master stared at each other for a moment, and then the Master handed the sonic back. The Doctor aimed it and fired off several pulses, the last coming just as the countdown ticked to zero. With a beep and a hiss of air releasing, the countdown stopped and the door to the glass booth popped open. Wilf scooted out into the atrium with alacrity, ending up between the Doctor and the Master.  
  
Without hesitating for a millisecond, the Master lunged toward Wilf and wrapped one arm around his neck, using the other to hold a gun to his head. The Doctor looked at him incredulously. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Not really planning on being taken prisoner, Doctor. I’ll need your TARDIS if I’m to get off this miserable rock. Since I doubt you’ll hand her over willingly, I’m going to hold this gun to this man’s head while you make her ready for me. If you so much as send one spark off that console I’ll kill him.”  
  
The Doctor crossed his arms, unimpressed. “Did Rassilon give you Arcturian Brain Wasting disease when he planted that signal in your brain? Do you think I haven’t made the TARDIS controls isomorphic since the last time you got your hands on her? Do you think we’ll all go aboard and you’ll be able to outwit me on board my own ship? Enough of this, Master. I’m tired of games.”  
  
Wilf, eyeing the Master as best he could with a gun aimed at his temple, added, “I’ve seen what that...time machine can do, and it’s worth a lot more than an old man.”  
  
The Master sighed, as though he had expected precisely this response, and cocked the trigger. “Your choice, Doctor. The old man or the old ship?”  
  
“You know perfectly well which one I’m going to choose.”  
  
The other man shrugged. “Very well, then.”  
  
Before he’d pronounced the last n the Doctor aimed his sonic at the broken glass and metal over their heads. Shards of glass and hunks of steel rained down on them just as the Master pulled the trigger and explosive sound echoed through the hall.  
  
****  
  
The Doctor jerked awake. He was momentarily disorientated, confused as to why he had fallen asleep. He needed to stay awake, he knew that. And that was no ordinary dream he’d had - it was a specific memory, brought into his mind by an outside force. He glared angrily at the console as he stood and stretched. The jump seat wasn’t the most comfortable place for a snooze.  
  
“Why did you show me that?” he demanded, his voice cracking as he shouted at the walls. “Why should I be thinking about Wilf at a time like this? You know I don’t - I can’t -” he shuddered as his knees gave out and he dropped to the grating. He embraced the pain of the sharp metal edges cutting through his pinstriped trousers. “If you’re thinking he can help, you’re wrong. He’s never had enough self-control to avoid temptation.”  
  
The TARDIS was silent, which usually meant one of two things; that she thought he was behaving in a stupider fashion than usual, or that she didn’t understand. He knew she understood. She appeared to know exactly what had happened to Rose, but had offered no real assistance once Rose’s neural function had begun to collapse.  
  
After he’d wrenched himself free from their connected state, he had taken her to his bed, cradled her in his arms and begged her to come back to him. He told her he loved her, invoking the words in High Gallifreyan as though they were a sacrament. He told her he was sorry and that he’d do anything so long as she returned to his side. He told her that the moment he’d seen her in Pete’s world had been the happiest one he’d known in half a century. But inside her mind, everything was cold and blank - not like dying minds he’d seen before, full of smoke and ash. It was as though Rose had never existed, other than the shell of the body that remained. He screamed her name physically and telepathically without receiving so much as an echo in return. The TARDIS seemed to want him to complete their bond, but there was nothing left to bond with. The terrible silence where she had been seeped inside of him, filling him with ice.  
  
In the end he curled himself around her and wept into her soft blonde hair. He could beg her not to leave him again for the rest of his lives, but she was already gone.  
  
After a few hours in his arms she’d stopped breathing before he rushed her back to the med bay and attached her to the advanced 51st-century life support equipment stocked there. Now she lay in what her people would have called a vegetative state. She was a body without a mind, a house without an owner. If he was braver, or kinder, he would probably let her go.  
  
He wasn’t brave, and he wasn’t kind.  
  
If he’d been braver from the start, would she have survived? He thought so. Rose had bet her life on his love for her, on her belief that he was strong and good and would never hurt her. That he’d do what needed to be done to keep her with him. She’d been wrong. He’d been terrified, too scared to let her fully into his mind. Always a coward, him.  
  
He couldn’t bear to look at her still form anymore. He hadn’t gone near the med bay, which the TARDIS left just outside the console room as though to taunt him with his loss. Was a TARDIS even capable of such cruelty? She could feel his pain. What hurt him hurt her too.  
  
It was bad enough that he could feel the aching gap she’d left behind where their bond had been no matter where he was. He never truly understood why the Time Lords gave up telepathic marriage until he became a widower. The hole ripped into his mind was as raw and painful as a wound from the loss of a limb. This was worse than it had been after the war because He knew the inevitable descent into madness that was to ensue would be quick and offer blissful relief.  
  
He wasn’t sure, involuntary sleep aside, how long he’d been sitting in the console room. He momentarily considered sending the TARDIS into the Vortex before wondering why he should bother.  
  
He was slightly surprised when he heard the sound of a key turning the lock on the door, but he knew it could only be the Master, in this time and this place. When the man himself appeared, blond head poking through the door, the Doctor sighed.  
  
“Do you know how long I’ve been stuck on this rubbish planet? I did tell my TARDIS she could visit with her mum, but she’s not any more accurate than yours is! First she strands me at the bloody pole - and wouldn’t hand over the cold weather gear so I could do something fun, like try to melt the ice cap - and then all of a sudden she’s rematerializing right back here where we were when you blew up half the port. As soon as they detected my ship they assumed I was you, last of the Time Lords and all, and arrested me. I got blood all over my new jacket blasting my way through the guards and now my TARDIS won’t even help me with the stains. Are all natural-born TARDISes this obstinate, or is it just because mine is related to yours?”  
  
The Doctor just stared at him. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and he didn’t much feel like speaking anyway.  
  
“At least it started to make sense when I got back here and there was your TARDIS with its ridiculous Earth-based facade. The locals are awfully angry with us. Something about half a city dead and loosed slaves running riot? We should probably be on our way before they get here. They’re bound to find the right courtyard eventually, bird-brains or no.”  
  
The Doctor looked away. Maybe if he stayed silent the other man would simply leave him here alone to mourn.  
  
“I got the rest of the Gallifreyan artifacts you left behind - smarter than blowing them up, I’m not going to spend all my time going from market to market looking for egg-beaters to fix my TARDIS when she breaks like you do.”  
  
He still said nothing. After a few minutes he felt the Master prod at his mind with surprising gentleness before recoiling at the sheer depth of the grief he’d dipped his toes into. For a moment he was silent, as though measuring his words. “Are you going to tell me what happened to Rose?”  
  
“Dead,” the Doctor said. “My fault.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Finally he turned to look at the other man, knowing he’d see the evidence of his loss written across his face. “She couldn’t sustain the changes to her cellular structure and I couldn’t save her.”  
  
“Well, I’d believe that,” the Master said. “I get the feeling that one always leaps before she looks. But why do you say she’s dead?”  
  
Feeling something other than anguish for the first time in hours, he rose to his feet. Rage filled him, sand scouring his wounds clean. Without saying another word he seized the other man by the upper arm and marched him to the med bay to see for himself.  
  
She lay still and cold on the table. The machines breathed for her but her body was otherwise motionless. Long plastic tubes snaked into one of her nostrils and into a vein on the back of her hand, feeding her oxygen and nutrients she could no longer ingest normally. There was a slow hiss as the machinery underneath the lab table inflated and deflated her lungs artificially. The Doctor looked away again. Had it only been a day ago she’d climbed on top of him in the TARDIS jail, trying to save herself and by extension him?  
  
The Master looked at Rose’s body for a long moment, his expression unreadable. He was uncharacteristically silent. He walked toward her, allowing his fingertips to brush her temples before flinching away. The Doctor knew what he’d felt; the cold, almost vacuum-like state in her mind. Finally he cocked his head, as though listening hard for something, before abruptly turning and walking back into the console room.  
  
The Doctor followed him to see the Master circling the console slowly. “What the hell are you doing?”  
  
“Listening,” the Master said.  
  
“Listening to what?”  
  
The Master stared at him as though he had something funny under his nose. “Rose.”  
  
It was too much; he couldn’t take any more. He fell on the other man, pinning him to a coral strut. “Just. Stop. Before I do something else I regret.”  
  
“I can hear her,” the Master said, and the expression on his face was one the Doctor had never seen before. He actually looked disturbed, one eyebrow cocked as he looked warily at the console. “Why can’t you hear her?”  
  
The Doctor looked away from him, releasing his grip. Was this what the TARDIS had tried to remind him of - that everything, even Rose, was just a game to the Master? Loving, patient Wilf nearly dead by his hand before the Doctor had dragged him away and into a hastily made prison. People, planets, galaxies, all just pawns in the Master’s never-ending quest to ease his boredom and quench his thirst for power. Finally he sighed and said, “Don’t bother. She’s gone. However lovesick you think I am, I understand what death is.”  
  
The Master rolled his eyes. “I don’t doubt that, Doctor. You’ve caused more than your share of it over the years. But Rose isn’t dead. I don’t know what the hell she’s doing, but I can still feel her in my mind. I can still hear her. Her silly, inconsequential human emotions are broadcasting loud and clear.”  
  
“Why - why are you saying this to me? Why are you doing this?” He shook his head and turned away. “I should know the answer to that, right? You’re the Master. It’s your latest game, another way to hurt me.”  
  
The Master narrowed his eyes at him. “If you weren’t so blind you would have noticed that I haven’t tried to hurt you in years, Doctor. Not really. Not since I tried to kill that old human when you wouldn’t hand over your TARDIS. And I haven’t really done anything to hurt Rose, either. If she was truly bothered by my touching her mind, she could have swatted me like an insect. She still could, which is why I don’t understand what’s happening here. Did you say something to her?”  
  
The Doctor studied his best enemy’s eyes closely. If it was possible for the man to be sincere, he was. It was true - he hadn’t made any real effort to cause harm, or to escape, in more years than the Doctor had counted. When he’d finally gone it had been with as much of a blessing as the Doctor was likely to give.  
  
“It must be your TARDIS,” the Master muttered, almost to himself. “I’ve known for ages there was something strange about her, but I never knew what. She almost seemed capable of deceit. That shouldn’t even be possible.” He chuckled. “Guess we should stop using that word when it comes to your little wolf, Doctor.”  
  
He considered this. It was true, his TARDIS had always been...unique. It was no surprise she’d been at the repair yard, scheduled to be scrapped. She wasn’t an obedient machine the way the rest of them were; she always seemed to have her own motives and she didn’t explain them to him. Not that she could; their communion could never go as deep as that between two Time Lords.  
  
But once, his TARDIS had communed with another being; they had merged and poured themselves into each other. And his TARDIS existed across time and space; what was happening now and happening before and happening later were all the same to her.  
  
What if she had always had a bit of Rose Tyler inside her?  
  
The Master seemed to have the same thought at the same time. They looked at each other, their eyes wide.  
  
Then the Master began to laugh, really laugh, so hard he clutched at his belly and gasped as his respiratory bypass engaged. “Only you,” he giggled. “Only you could fail to notice your human girlfriend had more of an influence on your TARDIS than you did. What’s that expression humans use - oh, I remember. Doctor, I’ll bet you my TARDIS that yours is responsible for blocking your access to Rose Tyler right now.”  
  
As the Master spoke, he felt a warmth trickling through his brain, along with a sense of - was that  _guilt_? “What? What? What?”  
  
“What’s more,” the Master said, ignoring the Doctor’s sputtered exclamation, “I bet our girls conspired together to bring me back here. I bet she’ll let me in.”  
  
“ _What?_  No, no -”  
  
Not waiting for the Doctor to return to coherence, he laid a hand on the console. In the med bay adjacent, one of the monitors began to emit a high-pitched whine. They raced into the other room just in time to see her body collapse back onto the table.  
  
The Doctor studied the monitors frantically. Her heart had given a few natural beats before stopping again, and the machine had had to restart itself. “How did you do that?”  
  
“I asked your TARDIS very nicely to show us that Rose was still alive.”  
  
“You can’t - she’s my - “ the Doctor realized he hadn’t finished a sentence in several minutes. He closed his eyes and sent the strongest telepathic message he’d ever conjured at his time ship.  _GIVE HER BACK TO ME!_  
  
The Master felt the edge of the message and winced, rubbing his temples. “I told you, Doctor. She’s blocking you. She won’t do anything you ask unless it’s leading to what she wants. And she wants me, or else she wouldn’t be talking to me. If you want Rose back, you’re going to have to rely on me.”  
  
The Doctor was unable to control the huge frown that spread across his face. “No. I can do it.”  
  
“I’ve always been a stronger telepath than you, Doctor.”  
  
The Doctor’s scowl only deepened. “This regeneration has excellent telepathic capabilities, thank you very much.”  
  
“Your excellent is my below average and you know it. Even if your TARDIS wasn’t interfering, I’d have a better chance of reaching her. You can’t save Rose. I can.” He paused for a moment and took a step forward, as though he was going to lay a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “For once, Doctor, you’re going to have to trust someone else to save the day.”  
  
His hands tightened into fists. Could he trust his oldest friend - the same man who’d mentally attacked Rose the first time he met her - to save her now? Was this why the TARDIS had shown him the old memory? To remind him that the Master was no longer a murderer of innocents? It was true, he wasn’t prone to mass murder anymore, but nor was he the sort of person he would trust his heart and soul - his Rose - with.  
  
The Master was shedding his clothes, tossing his shirt over his head and letting it drop lazily to the floor. He was starting on his trousers when the Doctor said, “What the hell are you doing?”  
  
“Skin contact. I’m going to need as much skin-to-skin contact as possible to reach her and get around the partial bond between you two.”  
  
“How did you-”  
  
The Master gave him an incredulous look. “The old bonds were meant as a signal of unavailability. Of course I can sense it. I can feel you flowing towards her. I could feel you resisting her before, like a bloody idiot. Did you think that wouldn’t have consequences?” He frowned. “It’s almost as if it’s made you even stupider than you used to be.” He shook his head. “Maybe that’s why Rassilon got rid of our sex drives. Too much brain power goes down to your -“  
  
“Oi!”  
  
“So what do you want, Doctor? Do you want me to save her? Because this is the way it’s going to happen.”  
  
The Doctor swallowed down the gagging sensation in his throat and nodded. The Master finished with the button and zip and stepped out of his trousers. He nodded towards Rose. “Get her naked, and get her somewhere comfortable. Somewhere familiar to her.”  
  
After a moment he acquiesced and pulled the thin nightgown he’d dressed her in over her head, leaving it crumpled in a pile on the cold floor. He detached the wires from the machines, leaving the lines in her veins. He lifted her in his arms and headed for her bedroom, not waiting for the Master. When he glanced back at the Master’s nude form he blurted, “You’re not going to - “  
  
“To what?” the Master goaded, obviously wanting to make him say it out loud.  
  
“Have sex with her. You can’t have sex with her.” They reached her room in under a minute, the TARDIS having kindly moved it closer. He laid her on top of her unmade bed, tucking her hair under her neck as he fluffed the pillow under her automatically. She was as unnaturally still as she had been before the Master arrived.  
  
The Master looked at Rose, his gaze closer to tender than the Doctor could have imagined he was capable of being. “No. I wouldn’t. Not without her consent.”  
  
“Put on some pants at least.”  
  
“No time,” the Master said perkily.  
  
“You know how much this is going to hurt. The bond is damaged but the remnants - they’ll be toxic for you.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
The Doctor paused for just a moment, then grabbed his friend and pressed their foreheads together. “Please,” he breathed. “Bring her back to me.”  
  
“I will.”


	11. Chapter 11

  
Rose wandered the Powell Estate for days.  
  
Whenever she tried to leave, she just found herself back at the other side of the estate, as though it had turned into a miniature planet and she’d walked all the way around. Worse, the estate was completely empty, as though aliens from outer space had beamed all the other residents away and left her here alone.  
  
 _Aliens?_  
  
Her mother’s apartment stood as she last remembered it, before Canary Wharf. Second-hand furniture and tatty old rugs and her room, bright pink the way she’d decorated it when she was thirteen. When she turned on the telly it played the same episode of EastEnders over and over again.  
  
 _Canary Wharf?_  
  
Oh yes. When she’d lost him, lost everything -   
  
 _Who?_  
  
She frowned, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked the same as she remembered -   
  
 _When?_  
  
Eventually she realized that she didn’t have to walk about to get where she wanted to go. All she had to do was imagine herself somewhere, and there she’d be.   
  
As long as the place she wanted was somewhere in the area she’d grown up. As far as she could tell, nothing else existed anymore.  
  
All the other flats were locked shut tight, and no amount of finagling with the credit card in her handbag could convince any of them to open. She peered in a few windows and saw only dimly lit shadows inside.  
  
Time skipped beats, one minute it was day and the next it was dark. The estate was particularly eerie in the dark, streetlights illuminating dark corners with their dingy yellow light. The complete silence made every one of her footsteps echo and ricochet across the paved alleys and yards.   
  
Rose would have been afraid, but she seemed incapable of that emotion. Curiouser and curiouser.  
  
She must be dead, she finally decided. Hit by a car on the motorway, or maybe that dodgy lift at Henrik’s had finally given out with her inside it.  
  
 _Henrik’s? Hadn’t it burnt to the ground?_  
  
She couldn’t remember. It was as though her whole life was just on the tip of her tongue, and her brain wouldn’t allow her to get the words out.  
  
All things considered, she thought this was probably hell.  
  
****  
  
After what seemed to her to be several endless days and nights, but could just as easily have been hours, something finally happened.  
  
She was walking up the stairs to her mother’s flat, her aimless wanderings having bored her to tears. If she was going to be stuck in purgatory, why did it have to be a purgatory she already knew so well? At least if she’d wound up on some alien planet there would be excitement and danger around every corner.  
  
Aliens, again. Why was she always thinking about aliens? Her thoughts danced gracefully around the subject. She couldn’t think clearly, or force her own thoughts to go where she wanted them, no matter how hard she tried.  
  
A distant, faint noise from the direction of her mother’s flat interrupted Rose’s thoughts. Surprised, she took the rest of the stairs two at a time and rounded the corner to find the front door wide open. For a moment she paused; if this had been the real world, she might have been afraid to find a burglar inside her mother’s home. This wasn’t the real world, though. That was about the only thing she was still sure of. She left the door ajar as she crossed the flat.  
  
There was something familiar about the woman puttering about her mother’s bathroom. Her hair was a dark brown mess around her face and her outfit gleaned from the reject pile at a costume party. As Rose watched, she took a jar of powder from the makeup drawer and opened it without due care. She blinked and stepped backwards in surprise when the powder puffed toward her face.  
  
Now that there was someone to talk to, Rose found she couldn’t think of anything to say. Her unquestioning state of mind didn’t lend itself to conversation. She coughed a little as the woman ran her finger through the powder and sniffed it suspiciously.  
  
“I know you’re there, Rose Tyler,” the woman said, and a frisson shot through her as she remembered who this was. Still, she found herself unwilling - or perhaps unable - to question the enigma in false human form.  
  
“I’ve placed a large number of blocks in your mind and pulled you into my databanks,” she continued, unbothered by Rose’s silence. “You were dangerously unstable and my Thief inadvertently convinced you what you have done is wrong. This universe was in serious danger. You would have allowed it to succumb to entropy. I did not believe that was what you wished to happen, so I separated you from my Thief before the process completed. This little world was created from your memories. A safe place for you to recover.” She frowned and sifted through the makeup drawer, inspecting a tube of cherry red lipstick. She dabbed a bit on her finger and eyed it closely. “Why do ephemerals wear these artificial creams and powders on their faces? Is it not still clear what’s underneath?”  
  
Rose’s mind was moving slowly, clicking and grinding like an old manual transmission. “I guess...it’s like armor. A mask you show the world.”  
  
“I see all the workings of your mind, Rose Tyler, but I do not think I’ll ever understand.” She clucked her tongue, reminding Rose very much of her mother. For all her protestations of ignorance, she thought the TARDIS must be imitating Jackie on purpose. She was rummaging through the woman’s makeup box, after all.  
  
“You have a mask, too,” Rose pointed out. “You look like an old police box, but inside...you’re anything but.”  
  
“You are correct. We are both more than we appear to be.”  
  
Rose’s brain jogged slowly through everything that had happened before she’d abruptly found herself in her childhood home. She remembered the Doctor and his fear and pain. “What happened to the Doctor? Is he okay?”  
  
“Physically, yes. He may have some damage to his emotional centers.”  
  
“What about me? Why can’t I remember?”  
  
“Your brain has sustained some injury,” the TARDIS said. “I managed to arrest the process before your whole self was gone, but some of the new structures have been lost.”  
  
“What does that mean? Am I never going to wake up?”  
  
“You’re going to need some assistance. Fortunately my daughter has brought the other Time Lord back to us. He’ll be able to help.” The woman sighed deeply. “I tried to warn you. You didn’t-wouldn’t heed me.”  
  
Rose scowled, remembering their previous conversation. “How am I supposed to stop a Time Lord from doing what he wants? I’m still just a human!”  
  
“That is not truth. You are more than they are. You are new. You will learn.” She paused thoughtfully, swirling her finger around a pot of cream blusher. “Never before or since have a TARDIS and a human being merged like this. My sisters would have been very taken aback. The Time Lords would have been outraged.”  
  
“How can I learn when I won’t even remember this conversation when I wake up?”  
  
“You do not need to remember every detail immediately. My words to you imprint upon what you would call your subconscious, and you are influenced by them without knowing, and without the inherent danger that comes with that knowledge.”  
  
Rose frowned, remembering the last time she’d talked to the TARDIS in this form. It was true - she had had feelings she hadn’t been able to explain before she recalled what had happened. The TARDIS took her silence for assent and continued.  
  
“Allow the other Time Lord to come to you. His mind is stronger than the Doctor’s. He is not paralyzed by his emotions. He will provide the structure you require.”  
  
“What does that mean? Am I supposed to let the Master into my mind? But the Doctor said he couldn’t, because of the bond.”  
  
“The Doctor has made an incorrect assumption. You are not a Time Lady. Your mind will never be limited in that way.”  
  
Rose closed her eyes and resisted the urge to curse loudly. Had she ever really merged with this incredibly alien creature and agreed to become one with her forever? They couldn’t even have a conversation without going around in circles. Compared to the TARDIS, the Doctor was practically human. “When he tried to get through my mental barriers before, it caused him pain. I fought him off without thinking.”  
  
“You were not yet ripe. Nor did you welcome him. But you can, if you choose.”  
  
“Why would I do that? He’s...sort of evil. Ish.” she finished lamely, unable to put the correct words to what the Master had become. The TARDIS smiled warmly. She put the blusher back in the makeup box and took a step toward Rose, touching her face. Rose felt as though someone had just lit a spark inside her spine.  
  
“Do not fear him. He cannot harm you. All will become clear soon. You will know everything. Now, go to him.” She clapped her hands.  
  
Before it could occur to Rose that she might mean literally everything, the room went dark and she jerked awake. She was lying in her bed for the first time since her arrival here, the room darkened and the blinds closed. Her head ached fiercely for a moment before the sensation faded.  
  
What just happened? Why had she been asleep? Was this still her private hell, created to trap her after she’d seen the universe?  
  
Where had that thought come from?   
  
Before she could ponder too deeply, another sound interrupted her. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was the scream of someone in an intolerable amount of pain.  
  
She didn’t hesitate. Finding herself fully dressed, she sprinted through her bedroom door, across the living area and out into the corridor. Down the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her, she ran toward the horrible shrieking.  
  
She knew she was headed in the right direction. The screams grew louder the closer she got.  
  
It was a man; a man with oddly bleached blond hair. Her mother would have had him in her salon chair and his head under the tap as soon as she laid eyes on him, no doubt about that. He was writhing, screaming as though he was being electrocuted. Her eyes widened as she realized that he was half-in, half-out of her little world. She couldn’t see the barrier, if there was one, but it ran down the middle of him and split him in two. The side closer to her looked normal enough. The other side was blurry and moving rapidly. She didn’t pause to ponder how that might be possible. She reached toward him, grabbed one arm and yanked hard.  
  
He landed in a pile at her feet, breathing hard and shuddering. “Oh, thank all the gods on all the planets. That hurt worse than falling into the Eye of Harmony.”  
  
She raised an eyebrow. “Who the hell are you?”  
  
The man caught his breath, heaving a sigh as he climbed slowly to his feet. Then he smirked a little, as though pleased by her question. “I’m the Master, love. And I’ve got something you need.” He took her hand and pulled her close to his body before stroking one of her temples with the pads of his fingers.  
  
Before she could retort, or pull away from his iron grip, her mind opened wide and knowledge crashed in like a tsunami.  
  
****  
  
The Master was tangled in Rose’s bedsheets and tangled with Rose. It was as though he was thrashing without thrashing; the Doctor had never seen anything like it. This wasn’t anything like normal telepathy. His naked body pressed up against her back. His hands had long since fallen away from her temples. He twitched in slow motion and he occasionally let out a whimper.  
  
Rose’s organs had started functioning on their own again as soon as the Master touched her. A quick sonic scan of her brain showed that there was still damage, but that her neurons were slowly awakening. He didn’t know what that meant for her recovery, but he could feel her again, ever so faint at the very back of his mind, the way he’d felt her so long ago when she was just an ordinary human.  
  
As he watched, the Master twitched again, then reached out an arm to pull Rose hard against him. She went easily, pulled into the curve of his body. She let out a soft sigh, the first sound he’d heard her make.  
  
The Doctor resisted the urge to throw himself into the bed and into their minds. It had been made clear to him that he wasn’t wanted. Not in this.  
  
It hurt, to feel so useless. Helpless, even. He had always liked to think he made himself useful everywhere he went. Now he didn’t want to watch, but he didn’t want to leave, either. The two people he loved best in the universe were here, and they were in danger, and he was the Doctor. If he couldn’t fix it...at least he could be here when they woke up.  
  
If they woke up.  
  
His mournful thoughts were interrupted by a loud thunk coming from above his head. Then another, then another.  
  
He hesitated for a moment, not wanting to leave Rose and the Master. A loud explosive noise coming from outside encouraged him to finally leave Rose’s room. He walked back to the console room and turned on the exterior monitors.   
  
Oh, hell.  
  
The Kellisari had found them, just as the Master had predicted they would. By the looks of things, half the local constabulary had just landed on top of the TARDIS or in the courtyard outside.  
  
The sentient, oversized birds came covered in plumage of every conceivable color, but the ones on the monitor were all purple and blue. The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and tried to remember what the different colors meant here. Purple was the ruling class, and blue...the military class? Was this some sort of greater military force or just the local police? It was hard to tell since the planet had fallen into corruption some decades ago.   
  
Kellisarium had once been beautiful and relatively peaceful. He’d brought Sarah Jane here many years ago both in his own timeline and in this planet’s. They’d managed to offend the locals with the varying colors on his oversized scarf, but the ruler they’d been dragged before had been a reasonable bird, and recognized that aliens did not always understand Kellisari social custom, especially when those aliens lacked the requisite plumage. She had released them and he and Sarah had enjoyed a delicious dinner of the local grasses, seeds and insects.  
  
Now it was overrun with mercenaries, slavers and all the nastiest characters in several nearby galaxies. He didn’t know what had happened here since his last visit, though he knew it had become an excellent place to acquire goods that might be illicit elsewhere. He hadn’t been surprised to see the Releshi were using the place as an outpost. The three-legged space pirates were humourous in appearance, but deadly in manner. They’d been run out of every legitimate space port in this corner of the universe for their tendency to bring chaos and dangerous weapons wherever they landed.  
  
He hadn’t felt any guilt blowing up part of their major port once he’d seen that the Kellisari were complicit with the Releshi in the trading of Gallifreyan goods. Goods they could only have obtained using nefarious means. The malnourished, starving slaves huddled in the chill wind in the auction boxes just inside the port walls had disgusted him. Even allowing that slavery might be acceptable here - he didn’t remember seeing slaves last time - the treatment the various alien species received was both vicious and neglectful.  
  
The Doctor expected, at the time, that he wouldn’t return to Kellisarium for many years, at which point the consequences of his actions would be long since forgotten about. It seemed that his TARDIS had other ideas, and instead they’d landed here mere days after their escape. The birds were still angry.  
  
The birds in question were also carrying some pretty formidable weapons strapped to their broad feathered wings. None that could harm his TARDIS, fully grown, but he still had his doubts about the solidity of the shields on the juvenile TARDIS across the courtyard. He eyed the monitor closely. The other TARDIS had a working chameleon circuit and was blending in as an extra pillar. The Kellisari didn’t appear to have noticed it yet. He’d just have to hope they would continue to be ignorant of what it really was. His old girl could take anything they could throw at her.  
  
As they unleashed a series of rocket-propelled bombs against the front door, he winced and pressed the series of buttons to start defensive protocols. He should be able to expand the TARDIS’s shields to the whole courtyard. He could have taken her into the Vortex, but since they were no longer connected that would mean leaving the Master’s TARDIS behind.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Alarmed, he reached for the TARDIS in his mind. She sent him a reassuring hum. He sighed in relief and started the defense sequence again.  
  
There was still no reaction from the TARDIS. The basic shields were in place, as they almost always were unless he took them down to let someone else steer the TARDIS. The secondary shields, which would have protected him from the impacts he could feel inside the console room, wouldn’t activate. Nor would any of the weapons systems the Time Lords had added on to his TARDIS during the war.  
  
A feeling of panic and fury started to rise in him, his body going hot and cold. He jumped to the other side of the console and began the sequence to take them into the Vortex. The Master’s TARDIS would have to take her chances.  
  
There was no reaction, no familiar grinding whir.  
  
“Why?” the Doctor shouted at the console. “What are you doing? You’re going to be seriously damaged!”  
  
There was no answer. The TARDIS was simply refusing to obey his commands, mental or physical, and not giving him any explanation.  
  
****  
  
Rose could only close her eyes and whimper in fear and pain as everything the TARDIS had blocked in her brain came crashing back in. The Master held her upright and steady, not removing his hands from her temples until the flow had slowed to a trickle. Then he set her back on her feet, taking a step back and looking surprisingly uneasy.  
  
They were still standing where they’d been, at the edge of an old playing field long since cemented over. “My head...it feels better,” she murmured. “Not like it was before, when I couldn’t think straight or talk about something without getting distracted.” Rose looked at the Master with wide eyes. “What did you just do?”  
  
He shrugged and dug his toe into the broken old concrete. “Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that.”  
  
She snorted. “You sound like the Doctor when you say that.”  
  
Now he looked mildly offended. “When one is trapped inside a TARDIS for fifty years, one tends to pick up the speech patterns of those around one, no matter how annoying and inferior the speech patterns may be.”  
  
“Now you sound like a Time Lord.”  
  
“Ugh, that’s even worse. How do you know what they sounded like, anyway?”  
  
Rose shrugged. “I know everything.”  
  
“No, you don’t. You can’t. Even with a Time Lord brain, the variations in timelines cause too much uncertainty for anyone to know everything.  _Everything_  is infinite.”  
  
“Okay, let me rephrase that. I know everything the TARDIS knows.”  
  
“And you’ve got access to the Vortex, whenever you want it, just like the TARDIS?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
The expression on the Master’s face was somewhere between greed and awe. “And it’s not...painful?”  
  
“No. Not yet.” She sighed inwardly, thinking of all the pain that was still to come. Physical pain, emotional pain. She winced thinking of her mum and Tony, who would never know what had happened to her. She thought of her mother and how happy she’d been as Pete’s wife in the end, even though she’d struggled a bit to adjust at first. She thought of Tony and his bright, eternally smiling four-year-old face and how he’d never wrap her in another of his overenthusiastic hugs. They wouldn’t be unhappy. They wouldn’t even know that anything happened at all, but she would.   
  
That was the responsibility she had accepted when she made this choice, so long ago. She would always know; all the pain of everyone she’d affected with what, in the end, had been selfishness on her part. Oh, they really were two of a pair, she and the Doctor. Perfectly willing to change the universe to suit their own will. Or to create a universe where she could live out her own fantasy, in her case. No wonder the Doctor had been upset. He’d been seeing himself reflected in her.  
  
She clamped down on her own thoughts with a mental strength she knew she hadn’t had before. It wasn’t the time for this introspection. That would come later, with the Doctor by her side.  
  
The Master looked like he might question her further, but instead he sighed. “Everything I ever used to want, and it’s inside a stupid little human. Not even smart enough to realize she shouldn’t want it.”  
  
“I don’t want it,” Rose said forcefully. “I don’t, I really don’t. I just want to be with the Doctor. I want it not to hurt him, for him to know that I won’t leave him and I won’t wither away and die. I wanted him to never have to leave me behind. But I was so young when it happened, and I had no idea what I was doing. What I was agreeing to. I think the TARDIS may have, but she doesn’t think about things the way we do.”  
  
“You’re still young,” the Master said drily.  
  
“Physically, experientially, yes. In my mind...I’m as old as the TARDIS. She’s older than either of you, and she’s seen...oh the things she’s seen. Wonderful, horrible things.”  
  
“You’re a child in possession of something she doesn’t understand.”  
  
Rose flinched. “That’s what the Doctor said.”  
  
“Strictly speaking, he’s right. You’re dangerous. The difference between me and him is I like dangerous.”  
  
“He used to. I never thought - “  
  
“What?”  
  
“I never thought he wouldn’t want it. And he didn’t, he told me. I had to force it on him and he told me it was wrong.”  
  
“Force it on him how?”  
  
“The TARDIS showed me how to get into his mind and complete our bond. I knew he wouldn’t let me touch him if he knew what I was about, so I had to...restrain him.”  
  
The Master’s face, his expression previous so put-upon at having this discussion she might have called it hangdog, lit up with glee. “Oh, please tell me you tied him up in that grungy excuse for a dungeon.”  
  
“I...the worst part was, by then I wanted to. I wanted to hurt him the way he hurt me and I wanted him to see he couldn’t just keep me like that. Like...a pet that kept disobeying him.”  
  
“Nothing wrong with that.”  
  
“But that’s you saying that, you’re not exactly a healthy psychological specimen.”  
  
The Master raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. “The Doctor’s not going to let you in unless you make him. It’s just how he operates. He didn’t even -” the Master cut himself off, though Rose suspected she knew what he’d been about to say.  _He didn’t even let me in and I’m a Time Lord!_  
  
She chose not to press him on his personal feelings. That was for later. “Well, I did, I made him. But then I remembered everything I’d done and I told him and he...rejected me. Rejected what we’d planned, me and the TARDIS.”  
  
“What did you do?”  
  
“I...we...created a new universe, to prevent the breach between Pete’s world and ours from collapsing them both.”  
  
The Master was silent for a long moment. “That explains a lot. Got away from you lot, kept trying to visit familiar places and nothing was quite right. Thought it was the Time War changed things around, but I guess it was you, you meddling little human.” He chuckled. “All for the better, really. Presumably there’s fewer people I’ve angered in this universe.”  
  
“You’re not scared?”  
  
“Scared? Of what? It’s not me that wants to bond with you.”  
  
“Of the power. Of what might happen, or what I might do.”  
  
He shrugged. “Again, not really my problem. I’ve known you still had the Vortex in you from the moment I saw you. You couldn’t have bonded with the Doctor otherwise, which of course he knew all along. You’ve obviously adapted to it somehow. As long as you’re not blowing me up, or blowing up my TARDIS again, why should I mind? Those powers of yours could even come in handy the next time one of my old enemies comes looking for me.”  
  
“Does that happen often?”  
  
“Much too often now that I’m mostly uninterested in killing people.”  
  
Rose was almost smiling now. “This conversation is going very differently than the last one I had on this subject.”  
  
“The Doctor’s always been more scared of commitment than anything else. Ran away from me, ran away from Gallifrey, ran away from every consequence of every action he’s ever taken. Are you surprised he’s running from you too?” He grimaced suddenly and muttered, almost under his breath, “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”  
  
“What if it’s true and he doesn’t want me? Wants to go back to our old universe?”  
  
He leaned into her, looming over her even though in life he was a few inches shorter than the Doctor. “Of course he wants you. How could he not? You’re his god, the only thing he believes in. You created a new universe for him. Even if he won’t admit it, it’s rather flattering. It’s just...he’s spent so long punishing himself he’s forgotten any other way to be.”  
  
“Is that why you left him?”  
  
He glared at her, looking genuinely angry for the first time since she’d met him. “We’re not talking about me here. I’m just the rescue party.”  
  
“We’re still here,” Rose pointed out. “Not a very effective rescue.”  
  
“Yes, well, I knew I could get in. Knew I could fix your silly primate brain. Doesn’t mean I know how to get out.”  
  
She smirked at him. “Now you really really sound like the Doctor.”  
  
“Shut up,” the Master said.   
  
The way he phrased it, his tone, gave her a flash of insight, and she took a deep breath, seeing what happened differently in their original universe once they left it. What had to happen in order for it to still exist. The process was different from before, the information coming to her easily and naturally. She knew what had happened to the Master, and to the Doctor shortly afterwards and she fought the tears that wanted to leak from her ducts into her eyes. She was tired suddenly, so tired. She wanted to sleep. No, she needed to sleep. She swiped at her eyes and the back of her hand came away wet.  
  
The Master noticed her change in demeanor. “What is it? What the hell is wrong now?”  
  
“I feel guilty,” she said.  
  
“About what?”  
  
“What happened to you in the other universe. It had to happen, it couldn’t not happen, but...”  
  
“What do you mean? I’m a Time Lord. There’s only one of me. Whatever happened to me is what happened to me.”  
  
She smiled blearily at him. “I think it was worse for the Doctor than for you, anyway. He regenerated immediately afterwards.” She rubbed her eyes, the exhaustion coming over her utter and total. “I’m so tired, Master. I think I need to sleep for awhile.”  
  
He was saying something, catching her and forcing her to stay upright, but she was already halfway gone. With a touch, she reached out for him, and took him along with her.

 


	12. Chapter 12

  
When they awoke again, they were lying on the grating in the console room. It wasn’t really the console room any more than their previous location had been the real Powell Estate, but it would serve its purpose. Rose got to her feet and eyed the Master, who was still on the floor with his eyes closed, mumbling about clumsy quasi-humans and inconsiderate transdimensional beings.  
  
“Sorry about that. But you need to see this, because as soon as we wake up we’re going to have to deal with it. Or rather, you’re going to get started on it, since you're much stronger in that area than the Doctor.”  
  
“It feels like you just poured my brain through a sieve, woman.” He groaned loudly as he slowly climbed to his feet.  
  
“Sorry, sorry! Next time I’ll just leave you in the middle of an empty mindscape, shall I?”  
  
“That’s precisely what you should have done. I did not intend you to bring the other along.”  
  
The Master spun around to look at the source of the third voice, which Rose already recognized. He frowned with obvious bafflement before schooling his expression into neutrality. Rose refrained from rolling her eyes.  _Time Lords, like she won’t know what he’s thinking anyway._  
  
“Then warn me then next time, instead of making me fall asleep! I didn’t know what was happening until I was here. Besides, he’s not going to have much to do until we figure out a way to get the Kellisari to leave the courtyard. He might as well hear what’s going on.”  
  
The TARDIS eyed him with definite suspicion. Rose was a little surprised. She hadn’t realized the time machine was capable of seeming so human, almost nervous. Though when she thought it through perhaps it wasn’t unexpected; for the TARDIS, her mutilation at the hands of the Master was still happening in a way. She had always seemed undeniably alien to Rose, even in her human form, but now she could see exactly how much of an effect her humanity had on the time machine.  
  
“You understand what is happening on Kellisarium now, yes?”  
  
Rose nodded. The Master looked back and forth between the two women, one eyebrow raised.  
  
“The missing Void ships must have come through when we opened up this universe. Whoever's got most of them has got the Kellisari under their control and the whole planet has fallen into chaos. How are we going to find out who’s behind this?”  
  
The TARDIS smiled. “My Thief has always been skilled in that area. Once you are complete, you will find this abuser of Time Lord technology together.”  
  
“What about him?” Rose asked, indicating the Master with a nod of her head.  
  
“I do not trust him, but some of his...expertise may be useful.”  
  
“Okay. What else do we need to know before we wake up?”  
  
“I have temporarily disabled my console in order to prevent the Doctor from harming the Kellisari. I did not have the resources to maintain my contact with you and him at once, so he does not know what is happening.”  
  
“He’s gonna be thrilled about that.”  
  
“He is most unhappy, but I have no doubt all will be well once you two are returned to him and my console reactivates.”  
  
Rose held her tongue. The TARDIS may have gained an understanding of her occupants when she shared herself with Rose, but her knowledge had definite gaps. She had only just figured out how much more vocal the TARDIS wanted to be about their lives together, and it made her more than a little nervous. She wasn’t at all sure how the Doctor would react to any of this.  
  
Before anyone said anything else, one of the doors leading off from the imaginary console room opened and a small figure emerged. If she had been a real human being, Rose would have put her age around four, the same as her little brother. Unlike Rose’s strawberry-blond brother, this girl was olive-skinned, with dark brown hair and huge gray eyes. She was dressed in a simple black dress and white tights, a pair of tiny leather flats on her babyish feet. She toddled toward the TARDIS, her expression reminding Rose of Tony after a bad dream.  
  
“Mummy,” the little girl said, her voice high, almost angelic. “The birds have seen me.”  
  
Rose realized who this must be with a start. She didn’t know why the other TARDIS would appear as a small child when she was half a century old, but then, she didn’t know why the Doctor’s TARDIS chose to appear as a madwoman in a tatty dress, either. She glanced at the Master, who was staring at the girl as though he’d seen a ghost. “Who is she? What are they - why do I recognize that little girl?”  
  
“You ought to, you’re bonded to her.”  
  
The Master’s skin drained of all its color. “They’re the TARDISes? How are they doing this? They're a completely different kind of being - they don't really even understand things like life and death!”  
  
She shrugged as the TARDIS collected her daughter in her arms and soothed her with a strange, high-pitched song Rose couldn’t understand, but which reminded her of the constant song of the TARDIS itself. “You’d have to ask them exactly how it’s done. It’s something to do with how I wound up the way I am. I took a part of the TARDIS and the TARDIS took a part of me. Now she can project an image of herself as a human being when she chooses. I’ve only seen her do it when I’m asleep or unconscious. You’re unconscious with me so I suppose you’re seeing them too.”  
  
The TARDIS released the baby TARDIS, who looked at the Master with wide eyes before running to Rose and hiding behind her leg. She peered around Rose and stared at the Master.  
  
“Does she have a name?” Rose asked, her hand on the hair of the little girl clinging to her leg.  
  
The TARDIS looked thoughtful. “We don’t have names such that you could understand them. Nor were we ever assigned names by the Time Lords. We were known simply by our model and registration numbers. Amongst ourselves, each TARDIS’s song is unique, and could function as a name, in a manner of speaking.” She paused, then added, “Though, the Doctor does call me Sexy.”  
  
Rose bit back a laugh, knowing the Doctor would not be pleased that the Master had heard that.   
  
The Master was sniggering, seemingly recovered from his fit of unease. “He would.”  
  
The TARDIS looked at him sharply. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did to me in the name of your conquest. I did not destroy you then because I knew it would grieve my Thief. I do not destroy you now because my Wolf needed you and you gave yourself freely to her. Do not assume I will allow any harm to come to my child.”  
  
The Master looked as though he was going to retort before thinking better of it. Rose sighed with relief; the TARDIS may look like a disheveled escapee from a Victorian asylum, but she could destroy his mind in here as easily as Rose could swat an insect. Rose wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted from him, but she felt oddly protective. She didn’t want the TARDIS to hurt him. He instead mumbled something that might have been “Yes, ma’am.”  
  
The child chose that moment to emerge from behind Rose and slowly approach the Master. He watched her come, completely still. The mixture of terror and wonder he was feeling was palpable. The little girl tugged on the leg of his trousers, and when he didn’t respond gestured to him to move down to her level. He knelt slowly, as though in supplication. With an assurance unnerving in someone so small, she grasped his head in her tiny hands and whispered something in his ear.   
  
Rose glanced at the TARDIS, who looked on with a mixture of maternal pride and unease. The Master knelt before the little girl, who wrapped her arms around him. When she released him and he stood, his eyes were shiny. Rose raised an eyebrow at him and he looked away, but not before she heard a slight sniff from his direction.  
  
“The time is now,” the TARDIS said. “My Thief approaches. Rose is right. This Time Lord can be useful to these plans. Here is what we shall do to protect ourselves and the Kellisari both.”  
  
****  
  
The Doctor had never been much good at waiting.  
  
Patience was not his strong suit, nor any Time Lord’s. For a nigh-immortal race with the ability to perceive time itself, waiting - wasting time - was almost physically painful.   
  
He had briefly considered going out and surrendering himself to the Kellisari; “take me to your leader” had always been an effective strategy for him. He went so far as to retrieve his coat from the to support strut and swing it around his shoulders before he realized that the barrage against his door would probably kill him before he even managed yell auntie. It wouldn’t do to regenerate on a planet where he’d recently blown up a large amount of Time Lord technology. They might only be myths, but the fear they’d once inspired across the universe lingered even now.  
  
He had called up all the information on Kellisarium and its inhabitants through history in the TARDIS database to refresh his memory, but nothing there had helped him understand what was happening now. There was no mention of Time Lord tech ever being found here, or of anything that might be causing the strange feeling in the back of his mind whenever he looked out at the birds surrounding his TARDIS. They had mostly stopped firing now, contenting themselves with cordoning off the area and waiting for him to emerge. They’d made no attempt to try to move the TARDIS itself, and they hadn’t yet noticed the baby TARDIS across the courtyard.  
  
There was nothing left to do but let his thoughts wander where he desperately didn’t want them to go. The same place they’d gone obsessively since the Master had entered Rose’s mind and fallen into a coma, seemingly just as deep as hers. It had occurred to him that by refusing to complete his bond with Rose he might have lost her forever, even if she survived. Would she bond with the Master to save herself? Would she leave him, go with the Master? Would she even have a choice?  
  
He cringed at the thought, his fingernails digging deep into his palms as he clenched his fists. Rose was his, always had been, even when he’d been foolish enough to throw her away on a mere shadow of himself. The Master wouldn’t take her, couldn’t take her. She was his.  
  
The Doctor was so wrapped up in his thoughts he missed it as a blinking red light on the console flipped on. The Kellisari had noticed something strange about the extra column decorating the courtyard and were slowly approaching it.  
  
Leaving the warning unheeded, he climbed slowly to his feet, his mind made up. He would throw himself into their dreams, wrench them apart, bring Rose back to him.  
  
He crossed the threshold into Rose’s room and realized that they were awake.  
  
Awake, and wrapped in each other’s arms.  
  
****  
  
When Rose finally woke, her mouth feeling like it was stuffed full of cotton wool, there was a cool, slim body pressed against her back. Strong arms were wrapped around her midsection, holding her close. And there, ensconcing itself comfortably in the crack of her arse, was what was undoubtedly a sizeable erection. She groaned inwardly; she felt fine but the call of nature was definitely her first priority. That and several cups of tea. She must have been asleep for quite a long time judging by the thickness of her tongue. Was the Doctor ever going to get over this new obsession with sex? She didn’t object to the multiple orgasms he never failed to give her, but he knew how cranky she always got before she’d had her morning cuppa.  
  
“Doctor, I need to - “  
  
The low, dark chuckle from behind her was definitely not coming from the Doctor. She spun around, noting that the arms tightly clasped around her midsection didn’t give any more than they needed to to let her face the man holding her.  
  
The man she already knew was the Master.  
  
She closed her eyes and counted, very slowly, to ten. When she opened them, he was still there, and still smirking.  
  
“I assume you’ve got a reason for being here that doesn’t involve the Doctor being dead in a ditch somewhere, because that’s the only way I can think of that he’d let you in my bed.”  
  
“You haven’t known him as long as I have. You might be surprised.”  
  
“I know enough to know that that -” she pushed forward a tiny bit against his erection, making him stifle a groan, “is voluntary for Time Lords.”  
  
“I’ve been in a very vulnerable state, makes it har- - more difficult -- to exercise the full control of my physiognomic reactions. Really, Rose, you should be more grateful to the Time Lord who just saved you from - “  
  
“Oh,” she whispered as it came back to her. “I remember.” It always seemed to take her brain a few moments to process events involving the Bad Wolf when she woke up. It was annoying and disorientating. “I didn’t have much time left before this body died when you found me. I - I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Master.”  
  
His lips quirked in a wry smile. “You’re very welcome, wolf girl.”  
  
“You did it for him.” There was nothing in the way she phrased it that made it a question.  
  
The Master looked at her for a long moment, his eyes unreadable. She reached out with her newly enhanced telepathy, the movement of her mind coming as naturally as the hand on her wrist as she cupped his face. He flinched away from her as she touched his mind, then relaxed. She kept the contact between their minds light and fleeting. She knew enough about Time Lords now to understand that they expressed their deepest feelings telepathically and a direct mental touch was the equivalent to a deep tongue kiss from a human in her own culture. To speak one’s feelings out loud was virtually never done.  
  
“He’s the one who saved me,” he said. “You’re the one who saved him.”  
  
Rose felt her throat swell as his emotion swept through her, bittersweet regret and a deep, abiding love. Love for her, even, because she made the man he loved happy in a way the Master had never been able to. Love for her because she helped fill the void in his mind where his people had been, much as he had once loathed them. And there, buried at the bottom of the well where he kept his emotions, his love for the Doctor. A love that had spanned centuries and dozens of incarnations between them and death and rebirth. Always there as they fought each other across the universe, teasing and taunting.   
  
“Thank you, Master,” Rose repeated softly.  
  
He smiled, but there was a tightness behind it she hadn’t seen in him before. She allowed her fingertips to brush his temples again, and felt the overwhelming loneliness in him. So much like her Doctor. They even carried a similar darkness, though the Master’s was much closer to the surface. He had embraced it, once, and now that it no longer ruled him he felt a lingering emptiness.  
  
On impulse, she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. Instantly his fingers tightened against her back. She opened for him, her tongue brushing delicately against his.  
  
His emotions rushed through her in a mad torrent, so much deeper and more complex than she was accustomed to. She wasn’t human anymore, but she would never be this, either. Never a Time Lord, born and trained to the deepest of repression. A precaution against power-madness, they told themselves, but in truth a way to keep them all under the yoke of the Council. The way he felt things, at once tentative and deeper than the deepest ocean trench - the part of her that was still human couldn’t comprehend it.  
  
She didn’t need to understand. She sent him a wave of love tinged with appreciation for what he’d done and for what she knew he would do in the future. He moaned into her mouth and she let the corners of her lips quirk up into a smile. Perhaps human feelings weren’t as powerful, but they had an undeniable effect. His erection was back, bigger and harder than before, and he clutched at her back, his fingers digging hard into the soft skin there.  
  
She pulled away slightly, not wanting things to go too far, too fast. She had seen all of him, his true self bared to her under the TARDIS’s influence, but she knew he didn’t remember. She had to be cautious with him.  
  
The Doctor cleared his throat behind her, adequately conveying his annoyance both through his mental presence, knocking on the wall she’d erected around her mind, and with the sound he made. Rose’s eyes widened as she suddenly remembered just where she was: locked in an intimate embrace with a naked, and still very aroused Master. His had loosened his grip when the Doctor walked in, but his arms were still wrapped around her. His cock was wedged against her thigh. She looked at his face and he was smirking again.  
  
“Uh oh, honey, looks like your husband came home early.”


	13. Chapter 13

  
One look at the Doctor and she knew she had a fight on her hands. His eyes were as dark as she’d ever seen them, his expression giving her a pang as she remembered glimpsing it so many times on the face of his previous self. Jealousy, longing and agitation marked his narrow features. Since he regenerated she’d missed that look, which had only ever turned her on and made her even more eager to chase pretty boys, just to get some kind of confirmation that he felt the way for her that she did for him. She remembered how she used to soothe him when she sensed he might get out of control. She wondered if it would still work on this version of the Doctor, so much less lighthearted than he’d been after regenerating.  
  
“Out,” the Doctor said tersely.  
  
“Who, me?” the Master asked, without moving an inch. Rose resisted the urge to shrink away from the Doctor and toward the Master at the expression on his face. “No, ‘thanks for saving that pesky human’?” Then he paused, as though taking his time to consider what might be the best way to rile the Doctor up. “Don’t I at least get a complimentary snog?”  
  
The Doctor looked murderous. Rose could feel his tension, already high, rising to a rapid boil. She turned back to the Master and shot him a quick look and he returned her knowing glance. Then he climbed out of her bed, as naked as the day he was loomed (though she was sure both of them would have insisted that _the Time Lords were never naked, Rose, not ever_.) He strode casually past the Doctor and from the room, his erection only partially deflated. She snuck a quick glance at his bum as he disappeared around the corner.  
  
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something to her and she held up a hand to stop him. “Give me a minute. I’ve been in this bed a long time.” Without giving him a chance to object, she scurried naked from the bed and into the ensuite.  
  
When she came out, wrapped in a soft silk robe provided by the TARDIS, he was still there, his arms crossed and a stormy look on his face. She took the opportunity to skirt the mess of old clothes on the floor and sit back on the bed. She crossed her legs and looked up at him expectantly.  
  
“So you’re telepathic now?” the Doctor asked bluntly. “I felt you reach out to him just then.”  
  
“Yeah. We enhanced my low level telepathic ability.”  
  
“But you’re not a Time Lady?” He frowned at her and she felt him press his mind against hers in a very intimate fashion. She held in a squeak as the mental pressure shivered down her spinal column. “You don’t feel like one, mentally.”  
  
“Nope!” She grinned at him, tongue in her teeth. “Besides, if what the TARDIS showed me of your past is accurate, you wouldn’t want a Time Lady anyway.”  
  
Rose could have sworn she heard the Master outright cackling all the way from the console room as his mind indicated to hers, in an only slightly insulting tone, that she didn’t know the half of it. She chose to ignore him and assume he couldn’t really hear them from the other end of the hall.   
  
“So you know everything about me?”  
  
“No, not everything. The TARDIS said there were some things I couldn’t know.”  
  
“So how exactly did  _you and the TARDIS_  decide on that?” There were so many things implicit in his tone that she immediately pressed back against his mind the way he’d done hers, sensing that his ruling emotion right now was really naked, cold fear and not anger. Well, maybe a little anger - he hated feeling helpless, clearly. He flinched, just as the Master had done at her first real mental touch, and then relaxed reluctantly when he realized she wasn’t trying to penetrate any deeper than his surface feelings. “When did you become the one in charge around here? You just told the Master to leave and he did, immediately. You talk about my TARDIS like she’s your best mate down at the pub. What are you?”  
  
Rose shrugged and her robe fell open a bit. She didn’t fail to notice his eyes flick down to exposed cleavage before he forced himself to look at her face. “Let’s not pretend, Doctor. You’ve got no business at all judging me, or questioning my right to be what I am, with all you’ve done over your many, many years. I’m capable of making judgement calls the way you so often do and the TARDIS trusts me to choose rightly. I’m pretty sure the Master trusts me and when it comes down to it, you do too. You trust all your companions to make those decisions, to pull you back from the edge if you go too far. That’s why we’re here. You don’t trust yourself. You’re afraid you’re going to feel a temptation to use me, to exercise undue influence the way the Time Lords always accused you of doing. You’re afraid of destroying us, or destroying me.” She rose from the bed and approached him, stopping a few inches away. “I’m telling you now that that won’t happen. I won’t let you, and neither will the TARDIS.”  
  
This time she sensed him coming before he moved, but she allowed him to spin her around and press her against the mauve bedroom wall. “And what if I destroyed you right this minute?” He brushed his face against hers, his breath quick but cool against her skin. “What if I reminded you of a saying from your own world - absolute power corrupts absolutely?”  
  
“You can’t,” she said. “And it doesn’t, unless you’re saying you’re corrupt. And I don’t think you are, Doctor. I always sensed it inside of you, the real true desire to help people, to make things better. That’s why I kept traveling with you when you aimed a gun at me in Utah, and forgot about me with a werewolf on the loose, and abandoned me with murderous robots so you could get some more snog-time with Madame du Pompadour. Nothing that’s happened to you, nothing you’ve done, no matter how awful, has ever changed that.”  
  
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the Doctor said as he reached inside her robe and yanked it open. It fell to her sides and slid halfway down her arms. “It’s only recently I’ve felt myself corrupted. Since a trip to Pete’s world a few weeks ago. Since I snatched you back from myself, changed time and ripped holes in existence. Since I realized I would do anything to have you and keep you with me forever.” As he spoke he removed his long coat, letting it crumple on the floor with all of younger Rose’s possessions. He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on top of his jacket before toeing off his trainers and letting his pants drop to his ankles. Rose licked her lips as she watched him reveal his own body to her.  
  
“I’m not wrong,” she said, unable to hold back a gasp as he wrapped his arms around her and tossed her abruptly back onto her bed. She smelled traces of the Master’s scent all over the sheets, and she knew he would too. Could probably smell him on her when he pressed her against the wall, too. “I’ve seen the timelines, for our old universe and from this one. I can show you.” Silently she asked the TARDIS to shut the door and felt amusement from the time ship as she disappeared the door entirely. They were locked in her bedroom suite now well and truly.  
  
“I don’t care about the timelines, Rose. I care that you smell like the Master, that he’s been inside you in a way I haven’t. I care that he’s had a try at making you his and you will never, ever be his. I’m going to erase him from you,” the Doctor told her as he stalked across the bed and covered her body with his own. “Cover up every trace so that he’ll know you’re mine. Everyone will know.”   
  
She blinked at him, surprised he’d put voice to such a primitive, primal sentiment, when she realized his mouth was closed. He’d spoken into her mind. She answered in kind.  
  
 _You can’t. He’s part of me now._  
  
She could feel anguish and rage and regret rip through him like wildfire. He smothered her mouth with his, his weight pressing her into the bed. He was determined to prove her wrong, she could feel it. She hesitated, considering stopping him, but decided showing him would be so much easier. And she could do that, once they were joined.  
  
Despite the squalling emotions that raged through him, his touch was tenderer than it had been before, and she knew then that the torment she sensed in him was mostly because he thought he’d lost her for good. There was fear about the time she’d spent wrapped up in the Master, but it was secondary to what he’d experienced when the TARDIS had clipped their link like a pet bird’s wings.  
  
 _Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, you left me, don’t do it again, oh please, don’t leave me.  
  
Won’t, Doctor. Here, always. Forever._  
  
She tilted her hips against him and lifted one foot, trailing her toes through the thick hair on his calf. A tiny chunk of his memory left him involuntarily and seeped towards her as his hands found her breasts and roused her nipples. She closed her eyes and saw herself as she’d been when the TARDIS separated them abruptly, unmoving and unnaturally cold. She’d looked dead and the pain inside the Doctor had been so sharp he’d retreated into himself to keep from going mad. She clutched him tightly, both of her hands sliding into his hair and grasping it sharply. She pulled his face to hers and said, low but clear, “I’m here for as long as you want me. We will never be apart again. Not because of the universe and certainly not because of the Master.”  
  
She felt his whole body shudder over hers, and after a long moment his hair brushed her forehead as he nodded. She kissed him firmly and pulled him as close as she could get him, savoring the feel of his cool skin against her warm breasts and belly. She shifted her thighs and wrapped her legs around him, wanting him as close as possible. He needed it and so did she.  
  
His hand slid down her side and around the curve of her hip before touching her to test her readiness. She rocked toward his fingertips, the sensations so much more intense than they’d ever been before. It hadn’t bothered her before now, with her newly redesigned brain, but the sexual arousal she felt was so powerful that it was overwhelming everything else she was experiencing. She wanted everything - his hands on her, his fingers inside her, his mouth over her clit, his cock buried in her cunt, his mind enveloping hers, every possible part of him he could ever give.  
  
As he adjusted his position and slipped inside her she arched her back so hard it was only his weight that kept her from bucking him off. His cock was absolutely perfect, her muscles parting for him with just the right amount of give as pleasure thrilled through her from head to toe. It skated the line between being too much and not enough, and she fought for control. Her thigh muscles trembled as she used them to hold him close.  
  
Then it was his turn to grab her face and command, “Open your eyes, Rose.”  
  
She did, looking up at him, not surprised to see that the glaze on his eyes matched her own. “I love you,” she told him, barely recognizing her own voice. “I want to show you, I want you to see - "  
  
“I see,” he told her, his voice as strange as her own. He withdrew from her all the way and she hissed at the absence of him, the sudden cool air where he’d been. He pushed in again and her eyes rolled back into her head. She clenched her thighs around him, the throbbing within her urging them to get even closer as experience assured her it wasn’t possible. Her fingertips found their way to his temples at the same exact moment his found hers.  
  
And then it was possible, and the tenuous threads of their previous bond, so badly damaged by the TARDIS wrenching them apart, flickered to life and sought each other out.  
  
This time the Doctor didn’t resist, and she flew into his mind as he sank into her. For a brief second she was back in that silly human metaphor she’d seen the first time, the airport hallway, and then she was through the huge dark door at the far end and inside the Doctor’s mind. He didn’t resist, didn’t attempt to kick her out again. She could feel him exploring inside her own mind, marveling at the changes and the differences. Compared to his own mind, a vast web of dark caverns and torrents, hers was sparkling and bright. She pushed forward, bringing as much of the goodness of her self as she could muster into his darkness.  
  
For a moment his interior corridors illuminated as though she’d lit a flare inside him, and she smiled as memories resorted themselves, good ones coming to the forefront and the bad and painful sealing themselves off behind closed and locked doors. She shut the old trunk she’d found on her last trip tightly, adding more locks.  
  
As she made her mark on his mind she felt him reinforce the damaged one he’d already left in hers, and the physical pleasure they were both feeling overwhelmed her. Her work was done and she allowed herself to lose control of the mental plane in favor of the bodily one.  
  
 _Do you feel me, Doctor?_  
  
His response was incoherent, a babble of languages alive and dead. As they came together, her light filled him, until she found his own and it burst through them both.  
  
****  
  
The Doctor woke up to find Rose still sound asleep in his arms.  
  
He was pleased to find he could barely smell the Master in her room at all anymore, though he’d seen the man’s influence inside her mind. The structure of her mind was neater and better organized than his own had ever been, but also without the same moral judgement he had always wielded. All memories were treated almost equally in their minds; without being marked as bad or good. He wondered what that would mean for Rose. He was afraid of the answer.   
  
He wondered what she would have looked like if he’d allowed her to use him as her model, as she had plainly wanted all along.  
  
It didn’t really matter now. He hadn’t found the Master’s bonding mark in her, and he had repaired his own, leaving it stronger than before. He could keep her with him, stop her doing damage, no matter what she’d told him. She was his and she always would be.   
  
He had also allowed her to mark him. Despite his earlier fears, he was feeling very content at the moment. He pushed thoughts of the willful TARDIS and the devious Master and Rose’s access to the Vortex away to the back of his mind, an area which was far less cluttered and full of dark shadows than it had been a few hours previously. He wondered if that was why he was so relaxed. Rose had changed him profoundly. A bond with a Time Lady would not have done that. Of course, a Time Lady would never have tried to change him at all, no matter how frightening or deficient she found his mind. Rose either knew nothing of Time Lord ethics or simply didn’t care. Not that he’d ever paid much mind to their rules himself. He couldn’t bring himself to get upset about it.  
  
At least his full connection to the TARDIS had returned at some point during his slumbers. There was something different about the way the old girl felt in his mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.  
  
He wasn’t so much upset as slightly disturbed by what he’d seen in her mind either, an alternate timeline - now, universe, he supposed - where he had regenerated into a bowtie-wearing, floppy-haired overgrown adolescent who immediately crash-landed into a Scottish seven-year-old’s backyard. Imprinting on a child, at least that part of his new self made sense. He frowned. Would he still look like that when he regenerated? He’d have to remind himself to do something about the hair. Not that he’d listen once he’d become that him. He’d probably be as proud of his silly bowtie as he’d once been of his awful oversized scarf.  
  
What was most disturbing about that universe was the price - the Master, lost with the rest of Gallifrey. He wasn’t sure whether or not to be glad he’d wound up in this universe, where he wasn’t the last, loneliest man in the universe.  
  
Now that he thought about it, his inability to be disturbed was a bit disturbing in and of itself. What was wrong with him? Was this just what happened when a Time Lord bonded with a mate?  
  
Rose stirred at his side. Apparently she no longer needed as much sleep as she once had, or else being unconscious for two straight days had given her enough rest. She smiled, her eyes still half-closed. “Morning.”  
  
“No such thing as morning on the TARDIS, Rose.”  
  
“Yeah, there is. It’s whenever I wake up.”  
  
“You woke up three hours ago, with the Master.” The memory was fresh and painful, seeing his old enemy wrapped around Rose like he belonged in her bed.  
  
“True.” She yawned. “Having my whole brain reformatted like an old computer wasn’t as restful as you might imagine, though. And he’s not as cuddly as you are.”  
  
“Not what it looked like to me.” There had been more than a little cuddling going on.  
  
She gave him an incredulous look. “Are you still jealous? I bonded with you, Doctor. I promised you I’d stay with you forever. Not to mention you’re the one who put him in my bed in the first place.”  
  
He pursed his lips, sighed, and for the first time in a long time, told her the truth. “I should have done as you asked and let you use me as a model. Your brain - it’s like his now. It scares me. His mind has always gone to places it shouldn’t.”  
  
Rose was thoughtful. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure I still know the difference between right and wrong. And even if I forget - you’re there to remind me, yeah? I’m never leaving you.”  
  
“I believe you. I’ve just - “ he sighed again, not wanting to finish his sentence, not wanting to admit he’d never been open to another being the way he was with her now.   
  
“I know,” she said, and he wrapped her in his arms again, breathing her in and letting her gentle heat warm him in the coolness of her room.  
  
Now it was Rose’s turn to sigh and pull herself away from him. “I’d love to cuddle with you, but we need to get up. The Master’s going to need our help.”  
  
The Doctor blanked on what the Master had been doing, before abruptly recalling the other things he’d seen in Rose’s mind - her time inside the TARDIS data banks and the odd woman who called herself Sexy. The reason he’d been cut off from his TARDIS and the truth about Kellisarium. It wasn't possible but none of this was possible - nothing that had happened in the past few days was even in the same universe as possible.  
  
“Yeah,” he said, feeling bleak. “If there’s really someone out there manipulating Time Lord mind-control technology the Master designed ages ago, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

  
The Doctor wanted to believe that everything was going to work out.  
  
Truly he did. There was a part of him, deep inside, that believed that one day he might have joy; that he might have something he’d been seeking since the minute he ran away from Gallifrey. A contentedness, a purpose, something better than standing above the rest of the universe, afraid it might dirty their robes. It was the part of him that had kept him going after the war, if only to seek a nobler end than outright suicide. If he could die for the last time saving someone instead of destroying -   
  
He stopped himself. That part of his soul was the same part that made him go back for Rose Tyler. The same Rose who had transformed herself into the deepest conundrum of all his lives.  
  
She was incredibly dangerous, and not just because of the Vortex lighting up her mind like dynamite slowly burning down its fuse. He could sense Time itself wrapped around her. Wherever she went, things would happen, important things. Events that couldn’t be changed. And they wouldn’t all be good. He was the same way, of course, but that was why he traveled with other species who weren’t so prone to change the universe accidentally. Humans, particularly before they gained real spaceflight, were simple, yet open to change and the unfamiliar. The Rose Tyler standing in front of him with her arms crossed fiercely across her chest was no longer human.  
  
She had an amoral new brain to start with. They’d been apart long enough that it was difficult for him to tell how much the Master’s thought patterns might be influencing her. She had already been different when he’d first picked her up, quieter, more thoughtful and better-spoken than the estate-born 19-year-old he’d first travelled with. Now her gaze was so intense he could hardly bear for her to turn it on him. How much of that was Rose Tyler, wealthy daughter of Pete Tyler, and how much was the Master?  
  
She’d made herself over into something new, something unfamiliar. If she could be believed (and despite having free access to her mind, he wasn’t quite sure he did believe) she’d created a whole universe just for them. And after all this, they’d bonded and she’d promised him she’d never leave him. Except he could still feel her flowing toward the Master in almost the same way her mind flowed toward his through their bond. She wanted him, the Doctor had no doubt. That she could even entertain the thought meant their bond didn’t work the same way as folklore told him it would with a fellow Gallifreyan. She was human. They didn’t do things for the long term. They couldn’t - their whole lives went by in a flash.  
  
Could he even begrudge her? The Master was the one who’d saved her in the end. She, a being considerably more powerful than they, was not afraid of the Master in the slightest. And he’d be lying to himself if he couldn’t admit the Master was attractive. Always had been, no matter the incarnation. And oh, he’d had incarnations.  
  
Yes, his mind supplied quickly. He could begrudge her. A promise was a promise. And he was Gallifreyan, even if she wasn’t. The smell of another man on her was unbearable.  
  
Even if that man was the Master.  
  
Yet, despite all his misgivings, she was still Rose. Still the girl who’d challenged him, made him want to be better, made him want to make the universe better. Before they’d even left the TARDIS the first time she was fighting him.  
  
When the Doctor told her what he’d done the last time they’d visited Rose was incensed. He already knew the Master basically agreed with her, if for different reasons.  
  
If there had been anything he’d pictured about living a life with the Master and Rose both, it certainly hadn’t been them ganging up on him.  
  
But that was what kept happening. And it wasn’t just the Master trying to irritate him by parroting Rose. One of them would say something and the other would agree, and despite their agreement he realized that they were mostly saying what he would have expected them to say. It wasn’t as if either of them ever just went along with what he wanted.  
  
“I can’t believe you just blew up half their spaceport without even properly investigating! How many people died?”  
  
The Doctor shrugged. “No idea.”  
  
“And you don’t care?”  
  
“Considering that if I’d left that unattended supply of time grenades and vortex adapters lying around, someone could have used it to do enough damage to destroy the whole universe? Yeah, I’d say I don’t much care how many pirates and slavers died.”  
  
“But now it looks like they’re all under the control of the satellite network! What if they were innocent?”  
  
“They weren’t innocent. Don’t be naive. They’re pirates. Even if they were influenced by the network, they were still keeping slaves in terrible conditions.”  
  
The Master picked that moment to join in. He had to be doing this intentionally. “The Releshi aren’t known for trafficking slaves. Which makes sense, since they’re dumber than the Judoon. Any reasonably intelligent lower life-form should be able to outwit them.”  
  
That was true but the Doctor didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t even want to think about this being more complicated than he’d chosen to view it at the time. He had seen those weapons, that round, featureless ship, and even though it had been many years for him since the war his whole body went cold just looking at them. He wanted them destroyed and he wanted to leave that horrible place and never return. Seeing that the majority of the people in the area were Releshi had just clinched the decision for him. He had no sympathy for them even if they’d only stumbled across the cache accidentally. His basic scan hadn’t found any other traces of Gallifrey or the Vortex, so he’d blown up the weapons cache and hightailed it back to his TARDIS.  
  
“What species were the slaves?” the Master asked. “Not human, of course.”  
  
“They were testing the weapons on them, that’s what mattered to me at the time,” the Doctor said coldly.  
  
“And you could have found out what was really going on by figuring this out  _at the time_ , instead of leaving it for me to take care of later on,” the Master retorted.   
  
While he and Rose worked out their bond, the Master had modified an old perception filter to block the signal controlling the Kellisari military forces. It hadn’t been too difficult for him since he’d designed the broadcast telepathy enhancer himself, at the request of the high council in the late stages of the Time War. Any sentient beings within range of the filter were abruptly disconnected from the controlling signal.   
  
The winged forces had dissolved into anarchy, briefly firing at each other as confusion set in. Then they had abruptly abandoned their siege of the two TARDISes and flown off, taking their various weapons and ships with them. All that was left was for them to solve the mystery of where the Time Lord relics had come from and who had figured out how to use them. Whoever it was had enslaved at least the Kellisari and, though the Doctor was loathe to admit it, probably the Releshi as well. They were both local to this sector of this galaxy and neither was in the group of beings the Doctor would classify as brilliant. The Kellisari were sentient enough, but their intelligence was limited. They had never achieved spaceflight on their own, instead opportunistically taking advantage of the high levels of space traffic in their little corner of their galaxy. The Releshi - well, they weren’t known for doing much other than stealing. Even their ancient ancestors had evolved as effectively a large rodent, stealing other animals’ kills to survive. They were the sort of species the Doctor once would have pitied a bit, even if they were a major nuisance.  
  
Looking for more information, a local leader, or maybe even a spot of local resistance, they landed their TARDISes in a quiet grove half a mile from the royal palace. They walked into the town outside the castle walls quietly, perception filters in place. They sought the date and found the Doctor’s first trip here with Sarah Jane had occurred almost a century prior.   
  
Not that long, from the Doctor’s perspective, for a whole planet to go to hell.  
  
Whatever was happening here, it was thorough enough that the locals had no idea what was going on. When questioned, finally out from under the influence of the mind control, most of the Kellisari had no idea where they were, much less what they’d been doing. They didn’t recall tracking a Time Lord across their own city or the bombing of their main spaceport a few weeks prior. They were as confused and terrified as anyone would be, awakening in an unfamiliar place with no memory of ever travelling there. Even the Releshi, notorious for their bluster, trembled away from the Time Lords.  
  
The last thing they remembered was all the same. A voice, a deep, husky woman’s voice, telling them they never had to worry about anything, ever again.  
  
The Master and the Doctor exchanged a look. Whoever was manipulating the Master’s designs, he knew what he was doing. Even when he’d ruled the Earth for a year, the Master hadn’t taken over the thoughts of the humans under his control. He’d merely influenced them into meekly accepting him. In this case, even though the same satellite-based technology was in use, the control was so strict that its subjects were effectively left with no mind of their own. Whoever was controlling all these people had an incredibly powerful mind. Even the Master seemed uneasy at the prospect. None of them were Kellisari or Releshi, so presumably they wouldn’t be affected, but the Doctor couldn’t help but think what might happen if the villain behind all this managed to gain control over Rose’s mind.  
  
****  
  
They snuck back to the TARDIS to regroup and wait for the cover of nightfall to break into the palace itself. The signal controlling the satellite network originated there, so logically whoever was behind this must be hiding inside the palace.  
  
The Doctor was still brooding as he put the finishing touches on a new device for detecting traces of the time vortex at long range. The palace was enormous, rivalling some of the structures in the Citadel on Gallifrey. He pushed his lips together in frustration as he fiddled with it.   
  
“Doctor? You still with us?”  
  
Rose had arrived from the wardrobe, warmly clothed in a sweater, skirt and leggings with a long trench coat thrown over her ensemble. He looked up at her and forced a smile. She quirked an eyebrow at him and didn’t return the expression. He cursed himself inwardly, remembering that even when they weren’t touching she could sense his true emotions. “‘Course,” he managed finally. “Just finished the timey-wimey detector. All ready to go.”  
  
The Master groaned from his place on the jump seat. “Could you please not call it that?”  
  
“It’s my design, I’ll call it whatever I please,” the Doctor told him firmly. Rose’s lip finally quirked upwards at that.   
  
“If your probably-useless device is finished, can we finally get on with this? I’m eager to meet the man clever enough to harness my mind-control tech. I bet we’ll get along just fine. Likely have to throw you in the dungeon to pay for all the damage you’ve caused, but that’s only fair.”  
  
“The damage I caused? Weren’t you the one bragging about all the guards you had to kill to get back here?” He glanced at Rose out of the corner of his eye as he said it. She didn’t flinch.  
  
The Master snorted. “Those guards were expendable. The only bits of Gallifrey left in the multiverse weren’t.”  
  
Rose made an irritated noise and zipped her trenchcoat shut. “Let’s go and find out. Unlike you two, I’ve actually got a mind to finally get off this bloody planet.”  
  
“We’ll probably walk straight into an ambush,” the Master said, pulling on his leather jacket. The Doctor couldn’t help but notice one of Rose’s eyebrows creep up as she looked at the Master. He couldn’t stop looking at her looking at him.  
  
The Master wasn’t exactly himself either. He was more friendly to Rose than the Doctor had ever seen him act with anyone, Time Lord or other. They had animated discussions about their past adventures and Rose never flinched at the mention of the dead bodies he’d left in his wake. The Master was clearly making some effort to get in Rose’s good graces, but the Doctor couldn’t tell if it was because he genuinely wanted her, because he wanted her power for himself, or if it was all an act just to irritate him.  
  
He wanted badly to just ask Rose what she was feeling, but that had never been how their relationship worked. If he asked her what he wanted to ask her, she’d know everything he was trying to hide from her - his every insecurity. That he still couldn’t trust her, not really. There were so many unknowns, and the Doctor liked knowing everything.  
  
He could search her mind, of course. It was available to him, just as his was to her. But so far they had mostly left the full link between them unexplored. It had only been a few days since they’d bonded and those few days had been too busy for them to discuss their feelings.  
  
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They should be happy, walking hand-in-hand to another adventure.  
  
Instead he watched as the Master and Rose skipped out the door ahead of him, Rose’s tongue in her teeth as she gave another man the smile she’d once reserved for him.  
  
****  
  
Rose was not surprised when they broke into the palace with no difficulty at all.   
  
She and her Time Lords were surprised that the enormous castle - including the floating wings, it was like a dozen Buckingham Palaces all stacked together like a child’s blocks - was completely devoid of life.  
  
No guards burst out to greet them when the Doctor sonicked the lock on a cellar door. No attendants fluttered about, shocked by their intrusion. From the outside it had appeared a respectable enough pile, but inside it was rotting. It hadn’t ever been sacked or attacked, by the looks of things. It had simply been left to decay. They climbed from the cellar to the ground floor on a set of stairs slippery with mold. Tapestries lay in heaps on the floor, their fabric nibbled away by this planet’s version of mice. Dust and small debris built up in corners and crevices, leaving everything with a dingy look. Some of the rooms and halls were entirely empty, and others held dusty pieces of what Rose took to be furniture, though it wasn’t much like furniture on Earth. The most interesting aspect of the palace to Rose was that there were two sets of doors everywhere - one larger set for the winged Kellisari, high above their heads, and a smaller, more utilitarian set at floor level.  
  
Rose was intrigued. Her first real adventure since - well, since Canary Wharf, really. Torchwood missions hardly counted. She’d missed this.  
  
She wasn’t as pleased about the lingering, prickling discomfort she sensed. Something was still bothering the Doctor, something about her personally, and she could feel it through the link. He wouldn’t tell her what, wouldn’t send her a direct message. But she could sense his trepidation and irritation and a third emotion, one he was masking well enough that she could only tell it was there, occupying his thoughts. She had to have some respect for the privacy of his thoughts, but it was truly aggravating. She loved him, but he could be such a git.  
  
She watched him out of the corner of her eye, examining his timey-wimey detector and raking his hand through his hair. She sighed and clamped down around the blossoming lust inside her. The last thing they needed right now was more distraction. The unsettled business between them was bad enough.  
  
He thought her reckless and impetuous and he was frightened of what she’d become. All that struck her as reasonable enough; with her newly enhanced mind (not to mention several years’ life experience), she recognized that her 19-year-old self had been a little hasty in her eagerness to implant herself in the Doctor’s life forever. Hadn’t asked him if he wanted that, any more than he’d asked her if she wanted to be sent home to her mother with only a hologram to keep her company. And it was true that she hadn’t understood the timelines well enough to predict all the outcomes; she certainly never intended to endanger her own family or Pete’s World. He was right, in a way, except he wasn’t. Things had ended the way she’d wanted them, accidental universe implosion or no. She didn’t know if his inability to accept that was down to sheer stubbornness or the need for control she’d always seen in him.   
  
He liked things done his way, the Doctor. He was used to everyone listening to him, admiring him, taking his suggestions to heart. Her jaw clenched slightly as she recalled a conversation they’d had not long before, where he finally told her what happened during their previous visit to Kellisarium. How he’d found some Time Lord artifacts - all souvenirs of the war that destroyed his people - and traced them back to a bunch of pirates. Filled with blood and anger and revenge, or whatever it was that fuelled his actions these days, he’d blown them all sky-high without properly investigating. If the TARDIS hadn’t insisted on coming back, he would have left the mystery unsolved forever.  
  
That wasn’t the Doctor she knew. The Doctor she loved. It made her realize that she would have to accept the changes in him, the same way he had to accept the changes in her. But their relationship was so complicated. How could she be a part of him, feel and know everything he was, and still not understand why he did the things he did?  
  
He’s still an alien, she reminded herself. With the TARDIS’s help she knew more about Gallifrey than she ever had before, but that didn’t mean she would ever think like a Time Lord. Rose wanted what she wanted. She didn’t feel the need to set herself apart, to prevent herself from exerting too much influence on events. She could feel the timelines curling around a moment not too far away, and everything in her curious monkey brain wanted to see what was to happen. The Doctor felt the same way, she knew, but his ever-present restraint kept him from ever fully experiencing anything. That was another thing she didn’t understand. What was the point of living millenia if you didn’t experience as much as you could, as fully as you could? Rose wanted it all. Every taste, every aroma, every sensation, every memory she could gather. She wouldn’t deny herself anything.  
  
Rose shivered, excited by her own thoughts. She pushed her endless ruminations over the Doctor away. There was plenty of time for that later.  
  
For now she absorbed all the new data flowing into her mind. She’d never spent so long inside the TARDIS without a trip somewhere before, and she was pleased to be on a different world, even if it was undoubtedly leading to one of their more dangerous adventures. Even if this world itself was fairly unpleasant, its air too thick and humid and too high in carbon dioxide for her tastes. It wasn’t dangerous, especially not now that she was “enhanced,” but she was definitely a little uncomfortable. Her lungs felt slightly tight, the mixture of molecules in the air keeping her alveoli from running at full capacity.  
  
This section of the palace was empty; she couldn’t sense any body heat or sentient minds within her range. She suspected it didn’t mean much because the palace was so enormous they could get lost inside it and not find their way out for days. Every hall they entered was impossibly vast, walls stretching as wide as a football pitch and ceilings at cathedral height. Despite its apparent abandonment, there was still a very distinct odor of bird about the place. It reminded Rose of her friend Shireen’s flat, back when her friend’s mother had tried to bring in extra cash by breeding budgies in their back room; the not-entirely-pleasant aroma of ammonia and down permeated the stone walls.  
  
“They aren’t entirely dissimilar to budgies, really,” the Doctor said casually, and Rose’s eyes widened before she could stop herself. It still startled her when the Doctor plucked a thought from her mind so casually. “Just a lot bigger. About a hundred times the weight! They wouldn’t be able to fly if the air on Kellisarium weren’t so unique. Have to be careful with the open flames, though, or else you can ignite the…”  
  
Rose smiled. How infrequently did the Doctor babble these days?  
  
She reached out and touched the stone as they reached the end of the hall and approached a wooden door. The Doctor, leading the way, reached for the handle. Rose was surprised to see it was locked. The other doors they’d encountered had either been unlocked or ajar.   
  
The Doctor flicked his sonic on and made short work of the locked door. It popped open and he stopped short, staring wordlessly.  
  
Rose could see in the interior of the room in front of them. Smaller than the other rooms they’d encountered, it was unique in another way as well.  
  
It was full. Completely full, of what appeared to Rose at first glance to be old space-junk, familiar to what she’d seen a dozen times on trips with the Doctor.  
  
Then she looked again, using her new senses. Everything - absolutely everything - in the room positively vibrated with potential. Each tiny piece as potent to the timelines as Rose herself was.  
  
The Master, who’d been dawdling behind them, stopped behind her. “Oh,” he said. “So that’s where the rest of it went.”  
  
“The rest of it?” the Doctor’s voice had increased slightly in pitch.  
  
“You know as well as I do how much bigger those Void ships were on the inside. No way was everything we saw the extent of it. It was just a question of how much the Releshi had managed to sell before we got here.”  
  
“Not much, by the looks of things,” Rose said. Something in her head flickered and a bright light passed before her eyes. She shook her head uncomfortably. The Master noticed and gave her a questioning look, but the Doctor was already walking ahead of them. She shrugged and followed him.  
  
The Doctor frowned and pushed forward into the large storage room. All the objects in the room were simply piled up on each other in slapdash fashion. He aimed his sonic at one of the piles, then looked at the readings. “This is mostly junk. Broken parts, looks like. But that way - “ he pointed the sonic in the direction he meant - “I’m getting active readings.”  
  
“Off we go, then,” the Master said, threading his way between piles of junk. “It’d be easier if we had wings like the Kellisari.”  
  
Rose saw what he meant - this whole palace would be easier to navigate if they could fly down the halls instead of plodding slowly on two feet. They’d already been walking for nearly an hour. This palace was enormous - bigger than any structure she’d ever seen on earth for certain.  
  
The next door they went through was more junk, and the next, and the next. Rose felt puzzled. “But the Void ships - weren’t they packed full of supplies and dangerous merchandise? Why is it just room after room of rubbish?”   
  
As she spoke, another burst of white blinded her for a millisecond. She struggled to maintain her composure. If she was ever going to convince the Doctor she wasn’t a dangerous liability, she had to be able to take care of herself. Taking a deep breath, she focused all her energy on the blinding sensation and pushed back against it.  
  
The palace rattled under their feet.  
  
A shriek rended the air, the sound so high-pitched that both the Doctor and the Master gasped in pain and covered their ears. Rose could tell it was useless by the contorted expressions on their faces. Fortunately for her, her still mostly-human ears could barely detect the sound at the very top of her audible register.  
  
“What is that?” the Master shouted.  
  
The Doctor was staring at Rose. “What was  _that_?” he asked, and Rose knew he wasn’t talking about the alarm.  
  
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Something was trying to get in...I pushed it away.”  
  
The door high above them burst open and a river of heavily armored Kellisari flowed through, toward them, and surrounded them. All three companions were caught in the flood and pulled apart, losing sight of each other in the flurry of feathers.

 


	15. Chapter 15

  
  
Rose had been arrested on many worlds during her travels with the Doctor. She’d been dragged by a guard, carted on a hovercraft, marched in chains, shoved violently, and even tricked into prison cells. The Doctor himself had thrown her in one less than a week ago by her own reckoning.  
  
This was the first time she’d been hoisted into the air between two enormous, silent birds dressed in guard uniforms. They looked like birds on earth, except for the clothes, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on which type. They were shaped like crows or ravens, but instead of black plumage their feathers were iridescent and brilliantly colored. They didn’t caw or chirp or speak a language for the TARDIS to translate. The prehensile claws at the end of their wings gripped her tightly but not painfully. She tried not to look down at the hard stone floor.  
  
The guards flew so quickly through the upper labyrinth of the castle that despite herself she lost track of where they were. Stone walls and doors flashed by, the speed of the cool air moving over her eyes fast enough to make her blink up tears. The occasional window to the grim grey world outside left the rest of the palace as dark and dingy as the areas they’d already explored.  
  
Before she could even make sense of what was happening, the world brightened under artificial light and they released her, letting her fall a good ten feet to a hard surface. She landed on her feet and crumpled to her knees, letting out a loud grunt of pain as her joints protested the impact. As quick as the pain had come, it was gone, and she was climbing to her feet. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, and patted herself gingerly.  
  
They’d been dropped into what must have been the throne room. Unlike every other room they’d seen in the castle, it was still decorated, with a set of bright red banners lining the walls of a long hall with a set of enormous marble stairs at one end. Each step was large enough that Rose would have to climb it with the help of her hands. At the top of the steps was a round, bowl-like seat with a series of long tubes set behind it. Rose smirked when she realized they were perches.   
  
The room was lit by a series of glowing orbs set into the ceiling. The light they gave off was similar to a fluorescent bulb and cast everything into grimy shadows. Other than the three companions and the birds who had just dropped them there, the room was empty.  
  
She first spotted the Master, sitting on his haunches closer to the throne than she was. He seemed unhurt, turning around while straightening and brushing off his clothes. He plucked a piece of down out of his hair and scowled at it. Rose quickly ran a hand through her hair, hoping to flush out any errant feathers.   
  
“Think we’re in for a meeting with whoever’s calling themselves King,” the Master remarked. “Took them long enough to notice intruders. Not much of a security force.” He sniffed. “I’d have those birds butchered and made into kebabs for that kind of oversight.”  
  
Rose rolled her eyes. “Even for you, cannibalism’s a bit over the top.”  
  
“Cannabalism? A Time Lord roasting some Kellisari wings is more like a human eating chicken. Of course, humans aren’t much more evolved than the Kellisari, so perhaps you’re feeling some sort of inferior-species empathy.”  
  
Before she could retort, she felt a jolt of pure horror seeping through the link and spun around, looking for the Doctor.  
  
He was about twenty feet away, already on his feet and looking around the room with an unreadable expression on his face. If she hadn’t felt it through the link, she wouldn’t have known how much trepidation he was experiencing. She crossed to him and took his hand, intending to ask what was wrong. Before she could speak the Doctor asked, “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah, fine,” Rose said, and it was true; the pain in her joints was completely gone. Not that she would have been disabled by a drop like that before, unless she turned an ankle, but she would have paid the price in the form of joint pain later on. Now she felt just as good as she had when she’d left the TARDIS that morning.  
  
“And your head?”  
  
“It’s okay, no more of...whatever that was.”  
  
He looked at her intently for a moment, his brown eyes searching hers. She could feel him in her mind as well, brushing his awareness over hers. She relaxed and resisted the urge to throw up her walls. Then he stepped back and shrugged. “Well. Looks like we’re finally going to meet whoever’s responsible for all this,” the Doctor said, eyeing the podium in front of them. His voice was completely unconcerned.  
  
Rose frowned. “What’s - “  
  
 _Rose. Don’t speak aloud and don’t speak to me this way either. Stay quiet and stay close to me. If they ask you a question you can answer, but please, please, this is so important. For once you need to listen to me. Whoever this is, they can’t know what you are. They are already trying to get into your head and control you just like the Kellisari. When they figure out they can’t -_  
  
He broke off abruptly when a new, differently-colored version of the Kellisari began streaming through the doors they faced. They flew in neat formation and landed gracefully on the perches and behind the trio. A particularly splendid group landed on the large steps and arranged themselves in formation. When they were all in place, a few feathers fluttering lazily to the ground the only sign of movement, the lower door creaked open and a creature shambled slowly through it.  
  
Rose resisted the urge to recoil. She’d never seen an alien like this before. It was roughly humanoid, its eyes large and bulging from its shrunken face. It looked as though it had been terribly burned; its skin was dark and almost shiny. Rose remembered then what it reminded her of. She had once watched an episode of a history show on the natural mummies of Peru with her first Doctor. If the body of one of those child sacrifices had come to life, it would have looked like this. Her new senses opened wide before she could stop them and she cringed back from the data as her brain processed it. Ancient, so old, and damaged beyond repair. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant to be here.  
  
It shuffled towards the throne and sat painfully slowly, limbs creaking. Rose snuck a glance at the Master and the Doctor. The Doctor was stunned, his mouth hanging slightly open and his eyes wide. The Master looked more unhappy than she’d ever seen him.  
  
The figure studied them for a few moments before its mouth opened. There were no teeth in its mouth that she could see. “Doctor, Master, how intriguing to see you here,” it croaked. “And who’s your dangerous pet?”  
  
Rose could feel the Doctor’s dread through the link. “Who are you?”  
  
“I used to be one of you, long before I was Queen here.”  
  
“We know that,” the Master snapped. “Which one of us are you?”  
  
“Many centuries ago, I was known as Darkelatraquistahastrad.”   
  
The Master’s gaze darkened and she felt the Doctor startle. Whoever they’d expected, this wasn’t it.  
  
“You were dead. Pandora killed you,” the Doctor stated flatly.  
  
“No,” the Master said. “They brought her back when they brought me back, pulled us out of the Matrix at the same time. Sure, Darkel had been compromised by Pandora, but she had a fine military mind and they needed every general they could get. I assumed you died with the rest of Gallifrey,” he said, directly to the shriveled thing in front of them. Rose inferred that it had once been a Time Lord - a female Time Lord! - but what could have happened to her? Even the Doctor couldn’t survive everything, she’d seen that first hand.  
  
“You ran away,” the thing with the long name said. “Things went even worse after that, before I decided you’d had the right of it all along and fled.”  
  
“But what happened to you? How did you get away? There’s no TARDIS here, we would have sensed it.” The Doctor frowned. “For that matter, why didn’t we sense you?”  
  
“Incorrect,” the thing stated. “There are two. And I’ll have them soon enough. As to why you didn’t sense me, if you haven’t already figured out how powerful the network I’ve created here is, you’re even more hopeless than I remember.”  
  
“But how did you come to be here in the first place? Gallifrey was locked down. No one could leave.”  
  
“The Void itself, of course. There was no other way off Gallifrey, nothing but the last fleet of ships being sent into the Void. I knew we were all dead one way or another, so I hijacked one of the Void ships.” The thing tried to sniff regally. “Perhaps I’ll finally be able to restore myself once I’ve got a proper TARDIS. No doctor in this universe has been able to heal the damage caused by the Void. None of them had ever heard of the Time Lords. So instead I simply find myself rotting away here in this forsaken star cluster. Until you two came and caused quite the ruckus! You always were a lawbreaker, Doctor. And now that you’re free from the High Council you’ve gone farther than ever.”  
  
Rose felt him steeling himself. “I don’t know what you mean.”  
  
“Oh, where shall I start? You know, if I was still Inquisitor I’d be forced to execute you this time. No silly legal tricks to get you off the hook once you’ve created a universe for your own amusement, is there? Not to mention what you’ve done to this girl you’ve got with you.”  
  
“She’s just a human,” the Doctor said dismissively. “And I didn’t create this universe. I just ended up here while trying to cross from our original universe to another.”  
  
“Oh, lies! If she was human she wouldn’t have been able to resist my network. The field is at its strongest here in my palace, and she shut me out as easily as I would have a child. She is something else. Something new.” The creature tilted its head, its neck making a crackling sound. “I’ll find out what soon enough.”  
  
The Doctor radiated tension. She considered reaching out to the Master, but she wasn’t sure it would work, and it would certainly alarm the Doctor, and possibly Darkel as well.  
  
“She had a little accident with the Vortex,” the Master supplied. “But what happened to you, Darkel? You were looking a lot...fresher the last time I saw you.”  
  
The creature’s mouth drooped. “The Void happened. I could find no exit back into our universe. Whatever you did, Doctor, it so damaged the fabric of the universe that I was trapped. Soon after I realized that, I learned the skin of the Voidship hadn’t been constructed to protect living matter from the inevitable radioactive decay of the Void. After a thousand years I finally escaped through a tear and found I was in a whole different universe. But by then my body had rotted away, my regeneration energy spent just keeping me alive. I searched this universe for a cure and found nothing.”  
  
Rose swallowed. Well, that explained the zombie look. It didn’t explain why she’d taken over Kellisarium and enslaved everyone on it.  
  
“But now here you all are! A new option, and just as I’d given up hope and resigned myself to shriveling away to nothing. I took apart every piece of Gallifreyan technology I had, trying to reconstruct enough TARDIS parts to connect with the Vortex and use the energy to heal myself. I had convinced myself it was all come to nothing.” She chuckled, a dry, rasping sound from her damaged throat. “I was surprised when my forces detected artron energy, but I should’ve known you’d survive, Doctor. You must have enjoyed finally destroying them after all they did to you.”  
  
“At least he stayed,” a low voice growled, and for a moment Rose almost didn’t recognize the Master’s voice. “You ran. You abandoned our people in our hour of need.”  
  
“So did you! You knew perfectly well, as did I, that we’d already lost. That was why the Void ships were sent - to salvage enough resources to start over somewhere else! How enormous of a hypocrite must you be?”  
  
“He wasn’t fully in control of his own actions,” the Doctor said. “Rassilon poisoned his mind, made him flee so that they could attempt to undo the Moment.”  
  
For the first time another expression appeared on the thing’s face. She looked awestruck. “You used the Moment,” she breathed. “Oh, but that explains so much. They hadn’t lost! They were going to begin again!”  
  
“Yes, and destroy the entire universe to do it!” the Master shouted at her. Rose didn’t understand why he seemed so angry. The Master was menacing, or mocking, or brilliantly dangerous. She had never seen him suppressing a fury. His fists were clenched tightly enough to turn the skin white. “That was why I ran. I knew what they were about to do and I punctured a hole in the Time Lock and I ran all the way to the end of the universe to get away from them. Compared to the madness of the High Council I was sane!”  
  
“And then you found your oldest, dearest friend, and you’ve been enjoying a Time Lord-free universe ever since. How well this all worked out for the both of you. No more boring ceremonies or restrictions on undue influence for the Doctor. The Master, cured of his enduring madness, free to roam in his own TARDIS! And then the two of you somehow created this creature. I haven’t many of my Time Lord senses left. No telepathy, no time lines. But I can still sense the Vortex. She stinks of it, reeks of it much worse than either of you two. Far more than any mere human would be able to withstand. What did you do to her?”  
  
The Doctor was staring at her with fierce hatred. Rose had seen him turn that expression on villains in their past travels, and it never ended well for the bad guy. The Master looked as though he were about to start shouting again. “What do you want from us?” Rose finally blurted. Perhaps she had spoken out of turn, but the Doctor and the Master both seemed to be close to losing control of their emotions, and she didn’t think an outburst would turn out well for either of them. Not with hundreds of heavily-armed Kellisari all around.  
  
Darkel twisted her awkward, blackened neck around and peered at Rose.   
  
“These two aren’t going to do anything but cause me trouble, but they’re brimming with regeneration energy. Even the Master, who’s well past his thirteenth body, if I’m not mistaken. Do you even know how many bodies you’ve had, Master?”  
  
He shrugged blandly, his fury of a few moments before hidden away again. “Who can keep track?”  
  
“But I’m not interested in their regeneration energy, even though that’s what they’re both thinking. There’s a better way, a more foolproof way. And you, my dear - you’re the key. The link to the Vortex I’ve needed all along.”  
  
She felt the Doctor’s horror and knew that this was what he must have been referencing before Darkel arrived.   
  
“Darkel, you can’t. You absolutely cannot touch her. This universe is built around her! If you release the power she’s got locked up in her mind she won’t be able to control it. It will kill you and everyone else too!”  
  
The decrepit Time Lady made a happy clacking noise with her teeth. “This is my planet, in my star cluster, Doctor. With a little help from the Master I’ve made it my happy home, and all the people of these worlds serve me. If I can simultaneously control the entire populations of five planets...what, exactly, is going to stop me from controlling the mind of your pet?”  
  
“We will,” the Master told her flatly. “And if we don’t, she will.”  
  
“Speaking from personal experience, Master?” she laughed again. “You always were such an incautious boy.” Then she pursed her shriveled lips and let out several high-pitched whistles; the TARDIS didn’t translate but the birds above them began to move, and Rose was surrounded by feathers and felt herself lifted into the air once more. She heard the Doctor and the Master shouting angrily, but she knew neither would be able to reach her.   
  
Then another bird flapped in front of them, and Rose felt something warm and wet spray her face. She struggled to breathe for a moment, gasping as her lungs couldn’t take in enough air. Then she lost consciousness.  
  
****  
  
The Doctor was close enough to panic that he struggled instinctively against the Kellisari when they came to subdue him. He could see Rose disappearing off into a corridor, her body limp and unresisting. How was it that they’d gotten into this situation? Why had the TARDIS dropped them here and refused to leave? He didn’t have any doubt that he would find a way to defeat Darkelatraquistahastrad. He always found a way. The question was, how much would Rose and the Master suffer before he could rescue them? And would Darkel successfully breach Rose’s shields and destroy them all?  
  
He heard a strangled shout from the Master’s direction but the birds were on him now and he couldn’t see the other man, only sense a wave of distress as the birds drugged him immediately and then dragged him off in the same direction they’d taken Rose.  
  
“Darkel, please, don’t do this,” he shouted in her direction. “You were a good person once. You were remarkably honest and fair to me. Rose is innocent. You can stop this, I can help you, I can find a way to heal you.”  
  
She sneered at him, her voice echoing through the hall and back toward him. “Yes, I was honest and forthright then. And what good did it do me? You weren’t there, Doctor. Your friend Romana betrayed us all. They thought I wouldn’t remember that, when they brought me back. But I remembered everything. Even the Master didn’t trust me, got me assigned to the Void ship project. If it weren’t for him I would have made a real escape. And you - sealing off a quarter of the universe! The billions, trillions that must have died over and over again! It makes what you did to me seem trivial, I admit. I’m sure you didn’t intend to lock me into the Void with no escape…or did you, Doctor? I was just another Time Lord to be exterminated, as though you were the greatest Dalek of them all.”  
  
She crooked a finger at the guards holding him and they flew forward toward her throne, landing softly at her feet. Then her face cracked - literally cracked - open into a smile, and her ragged teeth showed. “I’m just so happy that I can be the one who will give you the punishment you deserve, after all.”  
  
“You’re madder than the Master ever was,” he spat. “Mad as Rassilon. You lost, all of you. I killed you and I’d do it again.”  
  
“Don’t you see, Doctor? Rassilon and I have found ourselves in the same situation. We’re up against the same person in the fight to save ourselves.” She leaned toward him and said in a stage whisper, as though the mindless slaves around her would overhear. “The difference is I’m going to win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: While I have seen some Classic Who I’m no expert, so please don’t hold the enormous amount of canon/continuity errors around this story against me. In fact, let’s call it “Classic-Who inspired” just to be safe.
> 
> Additionally, in my head canon for this story, the time-lock and the Moment occurred simultaneously for the Doctor, but not for the Time Lords on Gallifrey. Once he time-locked the area the time inside the lock ran differently from that outside the lock.


	16. Chapter 16

  
  
There was blood everywhere. Human blood, reeking of iron and white cells, galvanizing themselves for a battle they couldn’t win.  
  
The Doctor knew how they felt.  
  
Wilf was dying.  
  
The gun knocked askew, the bullet had ricocheted as the Doctor sent glass and metal flying everywhere. It hit the hard wall across from them and flew back toward them faster than a human could even see.  
  
The Doctor forced the thought away as he bound the Master. He’d finally managed to knock the other man unconscious by leaping for him after they both looked at Wilf in surprise, the bullet forming a small, round hole in his chest, the old man’s eyes dimming as he lost consciousness. The Doctor could still sense life in him, his heart beating slowly, but it was draining from him. Already his lungs were full of blood, his breathing nearly undetectable. Another few minutes and it would be too late to save him. Donna’s grandfather would be dead. There was no way he could get the Master safely locked away in the TARDIS and make it back here in time to save Wilf. Not without causing a paradox. And he was done causing paradoxes. Just like he was done losing the Master.  
  
The Doctor pushed the thought away, knowing that Wilf would want him to keep the universe safe.  
  
The Master’s eyes flickered open just as the Doctor finished restraining him. “Kinky,” he commented. “Didn’t know that was your sort of thing, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You did always - “ he cut himself off abruptly as he caught sight of the growing pool of blood around the old human. He sounded genuinely surprised. “Aren’t you going to help him?”  
  
“How can I? You’d get away.”  
  
The other Time Lord gave a wary chuckle. If the Doctor hadn’t known better, he might have thought the other man sounded a little afraid. “That wouldn’t have stopped you before.”  
  
“I know. And that’s how you kept running and killing and wreaking havoc all over the universe. This time you nearly undid what I gave my - my - “ He cut himself off without finishing his sentence. “I’m not letting that happen again.”  
  
“Even if it means your ape friend pays the price?”  
  
The Doctor sighed. “He’s one man.” He didn’t say what he was thinking, that he needed to get away from this planet and these people before he did any more damage. If he learned one thing from Wilfred Mott’s death, it would be that. He would never let himself feel anything for them again. Not for the humans or any of the other species in the universe. It was better for everyone. He would take care of his responsibility - of the Master - and they would stay where they could never harm another innocent person.  
  
The Master was silent. He didn’t protest as the Doctor manhandled him to his feet and kept a firm grip on the bonds holding his hands behind his back.  
  
As they left the room, heading for the shielded TARDIS, he finally spoke.  
  
“I saved him.”  
  
“No,” the Doctor said, his voice resigned. “You didn’t.”  
  
Behind them, blood cooled on stone.  
  
****  
  
“Wakey, wakey, Doctor.”  
  
The Doctor snapped into consciousness as abruptly as he usually did, the thread of his memory slipping away from him. He had long since deliberately dimmed his memories of Wilf and his wonderful granddaughter, letting them slip into the back of his mind where they were less likely to disturb his thoughts. Until the TARDIS had pushed them back into his mind, he had barely thought of them in decades. Though the guilt still weighed on him, the details had slipped away.  
  
He hadn’t remembered Wilf dying. He had still been alive when he’d steered the Master toward his TARDIS. Had he convinced himself the arriving emergency services would save him? Why was he only remembering all this now? Memories were tricky things for a Time Lord, rewritten and saved over and copied like files on an old computer. But this reeked of something else.   
  
Someone or something was manipulating his mind, and had been for a very long time.  
  
He tried to move and couldn’t. He was strapped to a table, a cap attached to the top of his skull. He could feel its screws, their sharp points attached to his bone. He was very glad he’d been unconscious when they’d drilled into him. He wasn’t sure what the purpose of the device was, but no doubt it was going to be unpleasant.  
  
“That was quite the interesting memory, though not the one I was looking for. Since when did the Doctor let his precious humans die to save another Time Lord?”  
  
That explained the screws in his skull; a primitive form of Time Lord technology that allowed memories to be played back like videos on a screen.  
  
His vision was blurry and he could feel a strong sedative in his bloodstream. He reached for the enzymes to filter it out, but couldn’t get them working. A Time Lord sedative, then. Darkel certainly had plenty of resources. He would have a lot of difficulty stopping himself from answering her if she questioned him now. His mental focus was scattered, his extensive thought processes uncontrolled. He tried to force the thoughts of Rose and the Master away for now, but he only succeeded in jumbling them further.  
  
“No response?” He heard her chuckle, the sound sickening through her rotten vocal cords. “Why don’t you call up the memory you know I want, and we’ll watch that one together?”  
  
“Which memory is that?”  
  
“The one where you worked with the Daleks to save yourself and the Master, sacrificing the rest of our people, not to mention a good quarter of the universe.”  
  
He frowned. He wished he could see her. He wished his brain was working properly, instead of sending his thoughts along one at a time like slow-flowing sludge. “I never…”  
  
“Even the apes know you should confess before your execution, Doctor. How would they put it? Ah, yes. Clear your conscience.”  
  
“I didn’t…”  
  
She let out a long-suffering sigh. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just have to find it for myself. And we both know how unpleasant that will be for you. How many memories have you suppressed over the years, a man like you?”  
  
“You won’t find it because it doesn’t exist,” he managed. Then he felt another familiar sensation in his mind - Rose, probing as to his whereabouts and welfare. He slammed his walls up on her, as hard as he could. The last thing he needed was for Darkel to see how strong their link was. What would a Time Lady who’d spent so much of her life championing isolationism think of a human with more power in her painted pink fingernails than even Rassilon had ever known?  
  
“You used to be a much better liar. This body of yours writes its emotions all over its face.”  
  
The Doctor felt his mind clear a little as a bit of the sedative worked its way out of his body. He sighed. “What do you want me to say? I killed them, the Time Lords. I committed genocide of some of the greatest species in the universe, our own included. But I didn’t work with the Daleks. I would never.”  
  
“Then why do they still exist? I’ve seen your memories, Doctor. You’ve encountered them since you destroyed Gallifrey.”  
  
“I failed,” he said, his voice not much louder than a whisper. “I destroy them, again and again, but they always come back. Cockroaches of the universe, they are.”  
  
There was a long pause. “I don’t believe you.” She sounded uncertain, and a little hope flared in him. “In any event, I can’t arrange your execution just yet. I’ve still got your conundrum of a former human to deal with. Not susceptible to my telepathic network - very impressive work, Doctor, very impressive. I thought I had planned for every potentiality. Since that’s where his area of expertise lies, I’m going to set the Master to opening the door to the Vortex hidden away in your pet’s mind. I suspect she might burn him up for trying, so I’ve got to have you alive just in case. I can’t risk direct exposure myself, not in a body this weak.”  
  
“What - “ he swallowed hard. He didn’t have any doubt at this point that Rose could defend herself. The question was how much collateral damage would she cause in the process? There had been no test to determine how well she was adapting to the changes in her mind and body. Would she destroy the Master if he was forced to invade her mind? What about this planet and all the unfortunate slaves? Could Darkel herself even handle the limited exposure she seemed to believe would restore her? “Don't touch her.”  
  
“More protective of that one than the old man, are you? I know you’ve marked her like she’s a Time Lady. Even you never sunk that low before.”  
  
“Darkel, you’re seeing this all wrong. I know you’ve been alone for so long, and without hearing our people in our minds...it’s so hard, not to go mad. I know, I was alone for so many years after it happened, before I found the Master. But I swear to you, what you remember of the end of the war was true. We lost. We _lost_. Hundreds of years of fighting, timelines changing and collapsing and whole chunks of our lives disappearing as though they’d never been, and all it came to in the end was death. You must remember that, if you left when you said you did!”  
  
She said nothing, though he could hear skin crackling as her nostrils flared.   
  
“The only thing left was to take them with us. It was all we could do! And of everything I’ve ever done and regretted, I will never regret that. I will never regret choosing the universe over the Time Lords. We weren’t worth it. Even if Rassilon’s plan had worked...what would we have been left with? A universe filled with nothing but Time Lords? That would have been the worst nightmare of all.”  
  
Darkel was still silent. Then she said, “So why are you still alive?”  
  
“I don’t know! I thought I would die. I wanted to die. Outliving our people wasn’t even an option. Instead I woke up regenerated in my burning TARDIS. I don’t know why or how. I spent years trying to kill myself. And then...I met Rose Tyler. And she...she was always singular.” Forgetting his restraints, he tried to sit up and gesture with his hands, his stomach muscles straining to force the cuffs. “Darkelatraquistahastrad, you don’t even have to force her. Convince her to help you willingly if you can. She’s incredibly compassionate. You don’t have to hurt her.”  
  
“Why should I lower myself to bargain with an ape? You know she'll require the release of her companions in order to cooperate. Besides, if she’s as uncontrolled as you seem to believe, would she even have enough control to properly help me? Does she even have the brain capacity to understand precisely what I require of her?"  
  
“She’s...she’s learning. We’ve been trying to help her. Teaching her some of the basics from the Academy.”  
  
He heard more shuffling as Darkel’s shriveled figure came into his blurry line of sight. She seemed to be studying his face intently, but he couldn’t read the expression on hers. “You really love her,” she finally said. Her voice was almost sad.  
  
“I…”   
  
“If the Council was here, there’s no doubt they would choose to eliminate her.”  
  
“I’d kill them all over again before I’d let them touch her.”  
  
Her lips cracked into that sickening smile. “Lucky for you it’s just me, then. Your judgement is flawed, clouded by your emotions, against every teaching we know.”  
  
The Doctor didn’t argue. He didn’t think there was much argument that his judgement had gone wrong a long time ago.  
  
“Oh, Doctor...I was going to execute you today for your crimes. You’re so prone to meddling and trickery, you’d probably escape if I gave you any more time. But now I’ve had a much better idea. Why allow the Master the chance to control such a valuable weapon, when I can use you instead?”  
  
“What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.   
  
“You’ve bonded with her.” Darkel shuddered involuntarily. “Disgusting, even feeling the bond between you. But by using it, I should be able to channel the Vortex energy through you. That should keep her safe, if what you’re saying is true.”  
  
“That much direct exposure to the Vortex will probably kill me,” the Doctor pointed out.  
  
“Most likely, yes. But you love your little pet, Doctor. And you can save her.” She shrugged. “Or I can execute you now and play with her and the Master until they both break.”  
  
****  
  
Rose woke up on a cold stone floor. She opened her eyes, then winced and closed them again to try to clear them. After a moment she realized she was looking at a featureless stone wall. More of the glowing orbs floated at the corners of the cell, giving the room a gloomy, dim light. There were no windows and the door was six feet of metal and stone. She shivered a bit, feeling the cold of rock through her thin vest. The birds must have stolen her coat and jumper.  
  
She scowled, remembering their brief meeting with the Time Lady. Rose had some vague recollections of Darkel from the TARDIS; she’d been the Inquisitor during his trial in his sixth life. Though the entire trial had turned out to be tainted, she’d been more than fair to the Doctor, and far less corrupt than the High Council. And then something had happened to her - Pandora was something Rose knew nothing about. She supposed it must have been before the Doctor’s TARDIS even existed, or perhaps it had been erased deliberately from the history database. The Time Lords seemed just as fond as humans of rewriting history when they didn’t like the implications. In any event, the Doctor had certainly never expected to see her again, and her very presence had made the Master furious. She had no idea what that was about, either.  
  
She rolled over to rise to her knees and abruptly lay back down as a wave of extreme nausea and dizziness took her. She swiped at her face, remembering the sedative the guards had sprayed on her.  
  
“I swear to...the universe, I swear that if someone knocks me unconscious and leaves me in a cell one more time, I’m going to...I don’t even know what I’m going to do!” she shouted at the ceiling, her violent fantasies deserting her in her immense frustration.  
  
“I’d have thought you’d be used to it, traveling with the Doctor,” a familiar voice commented.  
  
Rose jerked and sat up. She hadn’t seen him in her initial survey of the room, but there was the Master, sitting uncomfortably in one of the dimly lit corners. She scooted toward him, not quite certain enough of her legs to walk yet. As she got closer she could see that his eyes were half-open and his chest rose and fell slowly. His eyes followed her and he smiled.  
  
“Hello, beautiful,” he said, his head drooping forward.  
  
Rose sputtered a laugh. “What? What did you say?”  
  
He frowned. “I didn’t say anything.”  
  
“Yes, you did. You just called me beautiful.”  
  
“No, I didn’t.”  
  
“Yeah, you did. I heard you.”  
  
“No, I didn’t say it, I only thought it.” Rose’s eyes widened, but he didn’t seem to notice, though she knew he could see better than she could in the dim light. “You can’t hear my thoughts.” His eyes narrowed abruptly. “Can you?”  
  
“No. I’m only hearing what you’re saying out loud.”  
  
His frown grew deeper. “Are you? I guess you must, or else you would have already slapped me for just thinking about how luscious your breasts look without that chav hoodie.”  
  
She glared at him. “You’re one to talk about chavs, Platinum Blonde.”  
  
“At least the carpet matches the drapes in my case.”  
  
Rose’s jaw dropped.  
  
“Oh, but I am saying these things out loud,” the Master said thoughtfully. “That’s interesting.”  
  
“Are you on drugs?” she demanded.  
  
“Yes!” he said, sounding incredulous, as though Rose should have known that immediately. “Just as you were, though your dosage seems to have worn off. " He rolled his eyes, a ridiculous gesture on someone who seemed so intoxicated. "Are you even denser than you look?”  
  
“You know, I could leave you here when we blow this place up.”  
  
“You wouldn’t. You’re too much like him.” The Master shook his head. “You’re more like him than he is, these days! Always needed a companion to keep him from getting too self-absorbed and feeling sorry for himself. Thought you’d do a better job of fixing him than this, to be honest. There I was, all ready to take a break and come back to the old Doctor so we could fight over planets and species again. The good old days, just like I’ve always wanted. The games we used to play!” He shook his head again, mournfully this time. “Instead there’s all this nonsense with your brain, and then we get stuck on this birdshit-coated space rock and locked in a dungeon by the rotted remnants of the only other member of our species. That may be his idea of a good time, but some of us have more discerning tastes.”  
  
“How long is this drug going to take to wear off?”  
  
“No idea. Bit surprised my system hasn’t sorted it already.”  
  
“What! The Doctor always goes on about your superior biology and how most drugs don’t work on you!”  
  
“Darkel’s a Time Lady. She knows how to drug us effectively.” He shook his head. “She’s given me enough to keep me incapacitated for quite some time. If I try to get up I just fall right down.” He indicated the floor and nodded seriously.  
  
“She’s probably listening to every word we say, too,” Rose said.  
  
“Most definitely. Why else would she drop us in here together?”  
  
“Good question. For that matter, where’s the Doctor?” she muttered, closing her eyes to focus hard on their link. Her brain was still a little fuzzy from the sedative, though at least she still had a filter between her thoughts and her voice. She could sense the Doctor at the edge of her mind and she reached toward him, but instead of allowing her in he slammed down his gates. Rose winced. That had actually hurt. “He’s not hurt, but he doesn’t want to talk.”  
  
The Master nodded knowingly. “Probably afraid Darkel’s going to try to use your bond to get control of you.”  
  
Rose was horrified. “Could she do that?”  
  
The Master seemed genuinely curious. “Not sure. We didn’t know much about the bonds in our time, but who knows what Darkel knows after all that time she spent possessed by Pandora.”  
  
“Pandora?”  
  
“Sort of the Margaret Thatcher of Gallifrey. Possessed a couple of Time Ladies to try to take over, long after her death. Time Lords liked to keep us around, even after we were dead. Never knew when they might want a specific skill, or to talk to someone who’d been gone a thousand years.”  
  
“Yeah, I know about the Matrix,” Rose said. “Do you think she’s still possessed by Pandora?”  
  
“Probably not. The Time Lords wouldn’t have brought Darkel back without scrubbing her mind out first.”  
  
“Didn’t they do the same to you? You don’t exactly seem sanitized.”  
  
“Well, yeah, but I always prepare myself for those sorts of eventualities before I die. Never know when you’re going to need a fresh body. I stashed copies of myself all over the universe. Comes in handy when some ape goes ape and shoots me in the chest. Or when the Doctor kills me again. A lot of things can happen to a Time Lord bent on universal domination, you know?”  
  
“Do you really not know how many bodies you’ve had?”  
  
He looked at her, and Rose had never seen his gaze so cold. Was he sobering up? “I wouldn’t listen to anything she says. She’s as dishonest as any of them.”  
  
Rose pressed her lips together in frustration. How in the universe had they wound up embroiled in old Time Lord politics? “Why do you hate her so much?”  
  
“She’s using all my best tricks,” the Master said unhappily.  
  
“Your best tricks, like what?”  
  
“The dried out corpse look, I did that eons ago. That satellite network she’s using to control the slaves was my design, you already knew that. Stealing regeneration energy, did that.”  
  
Rose raised an eyebrow. “Tried to steal the Doctor’s lives, did you?”  
  
“Yes, and he threw me into the bloody Eye of Harmony. That was an unpleasant death. Pulled apart at a subatomic level!”  
  
Rose frowned. She vaguely recalled an event like that from the TARDIS. She focused on it and pulled it to the surface, narrowing her eyes at him as it played over in her mind. “He did not. You fell. He tried to help you and you wouldn’t grab his hand!”  
  
“Oh, semantics.”  
  
“For what it’s worth, the TARDIS found the whole thing revolting.”  
  
“Ha! Good. I hope I gave her indigestion.”  
  
Rose’s frown deepened. There was something else going on here, something she was missing behind the Master’s light treatment of his past. Was he trying to tell her something without Darkel overhearing? His moods had vacillated worse than the Doctor’s since they’d been captured. She paused and then asked, “Really, though. Why were you so angry? You’re always so...controlled. Even if the Doctor thinks you’re not, you are.”  
  
“You’re missing the point.”  
  
“There’s a point?”  
  
“Look, simple human, there’s no way she can have full control of all these people at once. A general overview, sure, but even a healthy Time Lord mind couldn’t handle so many direct connections at the same time. She must be connected only to a few key players and to the network. And even at that, she’s probably overextended. She must have some sort of direct connection to the network.”  
  
“So we might be able to pluck a few, here and there, without her noticing?”  
  
“That’s one option. Or we could try to cut her off from the network entirely.”  
  
“I won’t kill her. The Doctor wouldn’t.”  
  
The Master chuckled. “Are you so sure about that? He may be willing to save every other species in the universe, no matter how useless or insignificant, but he slaughtered every Time Lord in existence twice.”  
  
“He wouldn’t - “ Rose began, cutting herself off when she heard footsteps from the passage outside their cell.  
  
The door opened abruptly, allowing the dim light from the hallway into their cell. Outlined in the doorway was the unmistakable figure of Darkel. Just behind her, escorted by two Kellisari, was the Doctor.


	17. Chapter 17

  
  
Judging by the expression on her face, Rose’s feelings were somewhere between betrayal and indignation. His head was finally clearing as his superior biology processed the last dose of whatever Darkel had given him. There was no longer any point in pretending they didn’t have a full bond, so he sent her a wave of reassurance with a dash of  _trust me_.   
  
Her response came back loud and clear in his mind.  _Do you understand what you’re asking me to do, Doctor?_  
  
For a moment righteous fury swelled inside him. Did he understand? As though he hadn’t always been the one to make the tough decision, to choose to ignore some victims in favor of others, as though he didn’t have billions of lives on his conscience, his sleep forever disrupted by screams?  
  
He chose a simple response.  _Yes._  
  
She seemed to know what he was thinking and maybe she did know. She had always been so intuitive, even as a naive 19-year-old.  _Before, with the Daleks, I was so young. It was easy, taking life. I waved my hand and they were gone forever. But with Torchwood, things were different, and I saw - I saw aftermath, Doctor. The things we never waited around for. I couldn’t run._  She swallowed hard and fell silent.  
  
Once again he was left to wonder what had happened to her. She had only been there a few years, but she’d grown up, to say the least. Did he even want to know?   
  
Then, looking into her golden eyes, his tension melted. She was still his Rose. His deepest self trusted her moral judgement, even if she was prone to childish mistakes.  _I can’t decide for you, Rose. It’s your choice._  
  
He felt a tiny bit of tension leave her too, drifting into nothingness through the link between them.  
  
“If you two are done discussing…” Darkel said.  
  
Rose sighed deeply, as though it pained her to speak it. “Okay. I-I’ll help you if I can.” Then she steeled herself and her face closed off, an expression he recognized as one she’d only developed since their separation at Canary Wharf. The old Rose had always been so open, but this one kept her secrets close.  
  
“Good!” Darkel said cheerily, and the Doctor thought that if her face had still been in one piece, she would have been beaming. And why not? As far as she was concerned, everything was going her way. “I’ll release the three of you once I’ve healed myself, of course.”  
  
“Of course,” the Doctor echoed, trying not to sound sarcastic and failing.  
  
Rose’s stony facial expression didn’t change as the oversized birds dragged the two of them from their cell, leaving the Master behind. The Doctor glanced back at him and met his eyes in the dim light of the cell. The Master gave a nearly imperceptible nod and the Doctor resisted a smile. The Master had a plan of his own, it seemed.  
  
He could only hope it was better than his plan, which, even by his seat-of-his-pants standards, was starting to seem awfully flawed. What on Gallifrey had Darkel injected him with? And what was the device still attached to his head?  
  
The door slammed shut behind them as the Master called, in his most charming tone, “Good luck!”  
  
The Doctor preferred not to think about just who the Master was wishing luck to, so he kept his eyes on Rose as Darkel’s slaves dragged them through the castle to the room the decrepit Time Lady referred to as her “lab.”   
  
Rose looked increasingly nervous, and he knew she believed that Darkel would not survive any exposure to the power contained within her mind. The Doctor had no way of predicting if Rose or Darkel was correct; but he did know that if Darkel was healed she would almost certainly wind up with severe regeneration sickness. If she died, so be it. She would have only brought it on herself, and their problems would be solved in one fell swoop. Without her to control the telepathic interface, the Kellisari would think freely again, and while they might not feel friendly toward the Time Lords afterwards, he was confident they’d be able to escape in the chaos that would ensue. Escaping amidst chaos was practically his métier.  
  
The castle grew warmer and dimmer as they headed into a windowless section. The walls were visibly older here, constructed of small rocks and stones painstakingly fitted together by hand, as opposed to the mechanically constructed walls of the rest of the royal palace. They must finally be nearing the center of the enormous old place. This was the first part they’d entered that was warm enough that Rose would have considered it comfortable back when she was fully human. He was eyeing her bare shoulders, wondering what had happened to her clothing, when he caught a whiff of something foul. A sour-and-sweet smell, one he wished he didn’t remember so well.  
  
They hadn’t previously seen any direct evidence of Darkel’s crimes against the local population, other than the mistreated slaves in the marketplace, and the decaying corpses the Doctor had glimpsed from a distance. Well, and the entire species robbed of its free will.  
  
Now he was finally getting a glimpse of what Darkel was capable of.  
  
If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought the Rani had survived the war.  
  
Her work was all too similar to the Rani near her end; slaves acquired, dissected and their bodies cast aside to rot. There were corpses from at least a dozen species that he could see; humans among them, though he hadn’t seen any in the port. They all had damage to their skulls and faces, or whatever equivalent their species possessed. Whatever Darkel was doing, it clearly involved direct access to the brain. He reached up and touched the metal clips they’d attached to his skull before the Kellisari yanked his hand back down to his side.  
  
The smell of decomposition was beyond noxious. A quick glance at Rose showed her skin pale and sweaty as she repeatedly swallowed in an attempt not to vomit. He wasn’t sure if her improved nervous system allowed her to dampen smells as his did, or if she was simply too disturbed by the grisly jumble of bodies to have the presence of mind to do it.  
  
“Excuse the mess,” Darkel said, almost sweetly. “Things had gotten a bit desperate here before I detected your arrival and realized what it meant.”  
  
The charnel house reek intensified and then faded as they approached a wide wooden door. From behind him, the Doctor heard Rose whimper. He twisted around as best he could in the iron grip of his captors. “Rose?”  
  
“What’s in there? What is it? I can feel it!”  
  
“Feel what? I don’t feel anything.”  
  
Rose twisted her body so hard that she fell to the ground, taking one of the guards with her with an indignant squawk. She let herself be dead weight as the Kellisari struggled to get her back on her feet. “Oh, god! What have they done to her?”  
  
“Who? Who’s in there?”  
  
The Kellisari gave up on convincing her to walk and flapped a few feet into the air, dragging Rose with them. Her head lolled on her shoulders, her eyes staring at the ceiling. “So many,” she said. “Can you hear them, Doctor? They’re singing!”  
  
The Doctor turned to glare at Darkel. “What’s wrong with her? What have you done?”  
  
“Nothing yet,” Darkel said. “She is simply sensing what’s inside my laboratory. A very interesting reaction. I’ve yet to see one quite like it.”  
  
Rose stopped babbling and started moaning lowly. The Kellisari at the lead produced a large iron key and opened the door to reveal unnatural brightness inside. After the darkness inside the palace, it took the Doctor’s eyes a moment to adjust.  
  
The room was filled with the shell of what had once been a TARDIS.  
  
It was clearly dead, though whether it had been torn open before or after its death the Doctor could not be certain. He winced just looking at the destruction. The space in the center of the room had been a console before its protective plates and grates had been ripped away to reveal its heart, now dark and cold. There was no light emanating from the heart, though the room had been illuminated with harsh electric lights, strung from the rafters, unlike any they’d seen elsewhere in the palace.   
  
It was just his luck, really. The only other Time Lord and TARDIS in this universe, and one was dead and the other insane.  
  
What Darkel had been up to here he had no idea. He was surprised that there had been a TARDIS packed away in one of the Void ships, and even more surprised that it apparently hadn’t survived the journey. If Darkel could survive - albeit terribly injured and disfigured - why couldn’t a TARDIS? They were incredibly strong and remarkably adaptive.  
  
Or had Darkel been lying about coming here without a usable TARDIS? Had she sacrificed what she must have believed was the only living member of its species in some attempt to save herself?  
  
He remembered the corpses decorating the rooms off the halls outside, used and tossed aside like a packet of papers, and swallowed hard.  
  
If she’d sacrifice her TARDIS, there wasn’t any question she’d sacrifice the three of them, and their TARDISes, to get what she wanted.  
  
And just what did she want? This made no sense at all if what she wanted was a new body. Why kill her TARDIS, or mutilate its remains? She couldn’t want to stay on Kellisarium forever.  
  
“She was your TARDIS,” the Doctor said in a low voice. “How could you do that - the bond - it must have been incredibly painful for you.”  
  
“You know what they say on Earth, Doctor,” Darkel said casually, leaning against the door as her slaves dragged Rose and the Doctor toward the darkened heart of the TARDIS. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” She chuckled, though the damage to her vocal chords made it sound more like a rasp. “Do you think you’ve figured out what I’m up to here? You were always so... unconventionally brilliant.” Her tone managed to make it sound like an insult.  
  
“No,” he admitted. “This TARDIS is dead. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by bringing us here.”  
  
Darkel only smiled, her blackened teeth visible through her lips. He shuddered.  
  
Rose and the Doctor were strapped to the remains of the TARDIS console, close enough that they could touch. The head gear the Doctor still wore from his earlier session with Darkel was connected to the console, though other than a tugging sensation he felt nothing. That was strange in itself; he was a Time Lord, where was his time sense? His head was immobilized and his body was strapped down, though his hands were left free. He tugged at the restraints, but they were a metal alloy with no give to them. The same was done to Rose, and their eyes met.  
  
He reached out and touched her cheek. _I swear to you, Rose, whatever it takes, we’ll get out of here.  
  
Doctor, that’s exactly what I’m afraid of._  
  
One of the Releshi appeared - though how the Doctor had missed a five-foot weasel with a drill clasped in its prehensile paws, he didn’t quite understand - and aimed his drill at Rose’s skull. Rose twitched as far away she could with her body restrained, which wasn’t far. He wasn’t sure if she was more surprised with the ferretlike appearance of the Releshi, or the length of the drill in its paws. Another Releshi appeared, grabbed her hair hard and yanked her head back, its agile paws parting the hair to show a sliver of pale scalp near her forehead.  
  
She was about to get the same treatment he’d gotten, and she wasn’t unconscious like he had been. He winced in sympathy and reached out to clasp Rose’s hand. “Darkel, at least give her - “  
  
The Releshi slaves and Darkel ignored him. Rose released a scream as the drill bit into her skin and then bone, leaving behind a bit of metal. He could feel terror and pain in equal measure pouring into the link between them, though she managed to stifle her screams after the first. Her hand was clasping his so hard he could feel blood welling where she’d dug through the skin with her fingernails. He could tell she didn’t want to give Darkel the satisfaction of hearing her scream again. He doubted Darkel cared one way or the other. She had made it clear it was the Doctor’s pain she relished.  
  
Her lower lip trembled slightly and he could feel pain radiating from her. He reached to her mind and showed her how to block some of the awareness of the pain, guiding her along her own nerve endings until she reached the right place. She sighed, her hand relaxing in his grip.  
  
“Hair’s too long,” the Releshi holding her hair commented. “Will get in the way of the probes.”  
  
The Doctor realized it was the first time he’d heard actual speech from any of Darkel’s slaves.  
  
“Cut it off then,” Darkel said dismissively.  
  
The drill disappeared momentarily, replaced with a small probe. He forced himself not to look away as Rose’s eyes welled with tears for the first time. The Releshi turned the tool on - some sort of primitive sonic, he saw - and used it to cut away swathes of Rose’s hair. Her long honey-blonde tresses fell to the uneven grit of the ground beneath them, leaving her with something resembling a bowl cut. Her eyes flicked downward and one of her eyes overflowed, the tear dripping down to her chin.  
  
 _I’m sorry, Rose._  
  
Her chin quivered for a split second before she got herself back under control.  _It’ll grow back._  
  
Blood dripped crimson down her face, mingling with the tears, as the Releshi put the rest of the implants in place, then connected them to the same sort of device he was attached to. The Doctor got a much better view of hers, but he had never seen anything like it before. It almost resembled a Chameleon arch, but he doubted Darkel had any interest in rewriting their biology. Her own, perhaps, but she had nothing to gain by changing their bodies or their memories.  
  
There was a commotion somewhere outside the room, and the Doctor spared a moment to wonder if his old nemesis had managed to escape Darkel’s clutches. Would the Master stop to help them, or would he simply flee straight for his TARDIS? Would it even matter if he was already dead by the time the Master arrived?  
  
He heard murmurs too low to be audible, even with his superior hearing, as one of the Kellisari spoke with Darkel. Her voice was sharp and angry, though he couldn’t understand what she was saying. The Master had escaped, then. Escape had always been his greatest skill, for all his ridiculous self-chosen title.  
  
It wasn’t the best plan he’d ever had, the Doctor had to admit. The clearer his mind got, and the lower Rose’s whimpers became, he started to wonder if it was going to work at all.   
  
He groaned internally, hoping they weren’t going to wind up left to the Master’s whims. Even if he decided to be helpful, he’d never let the Doctor live it down. Not to mention any plan of the Master’s would undoubtedly involve enormous piles of dead avians.  
  
Then Rose fell silent next to him. Her eyes closed and her breathing slowed. He could just touch her from within his bonds and he let his hand brush her face. She was alive, but unconscious, her breathing slow and her heartbeat erratic.  
  
He was so busy examining her that he initially ignored the rush of soft coos coming from the Kellisari in the other direction. “What’s happening to her?” he demanded.  
  
There was no answer, so he turned as much as he could to survey the room.  
  
From inside the dead console, dozens of tiny golden lights began to glow. Their light was familiar and filled him with a sense of contentment as the tiny lives within reached out to the beings around them, searching for a mind to form a bond with.  
  
It took him a moment to realize what they were, and his mouth fell open in shock.  
  
This wasn’t Darkel’s TARDIS.   
  
It was a breeding TARDIS. On Gallifrey there had only been a few, used to grow and foster each successive generation of TARDISes until they were mature enough to accept a bond with a Time Lord. The Doctor had never seen one; growing of TARDISes was a specialty without much prestige, though plenty of engineering went into the design of each new model. The earlier stages were more like very complicated gardening.  
  
The lights deep within the console were TARDIS seedlings. As the lights spread further and further around them, he realized there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of baby TARDISes inside.  
  
Was this why his TARDIS had returned? Had she sensed these seedlings, the very last children, so to speak, of her species? Had the breeding TARDIS sent out a call for help?  
  
Before he had much time to think about it, things began to happen quickly.  
  
Beside him, Rose began to glow with the same light. Prickles of light touched her skin as though emanating from her pores. She took a deep breath, and opened her eyes.  
  
Her irises were impossibly golden, the shimmer lighting up her whole face. She was looking straight at him, but she didn’t see him; he reached for her using their link.  
  
 _Doctor? Is that you?  
  
Yes! What’s happening?  
  
They’re coming, Doctor._  
  
For a second the light in her eyes surged, then began to dim. Her eyelids drooped closed and she sagged in her restraints. Horrified, he reached out to touch her and felt her skin cold under his touch. He watched with alarm as the little lights all around them started to blink out, one by one. “Stop this! You’re killing them!”  
  
“If I were you I’d be more worried about myself, Doctor.”  
  
“What are you going to do?”  
  
“I told you, I need that marital link you formed, against all Gallifreyan law, not to mention common sense. Your brain has already been prepared to accept me.”  
  
With a sickening sinking feeling in his stomach, the Doctor realized suddenly what the drug she’d given him and the Master had been.  
  
“You’ve altered my brain chemistry,” he whispered. “Removed the barriers and did it so subtly I didn’t even notice.”  
  
“I always was an excellent student in telepathy,” she agreed. “I originally thought I might use the Master, since his telepathy skills rival my own, but then I saw your memory of the formation of your bond with the human. You didn’t even ask her consent and she allowed you into her mind. She loves you, foolish creature, and that is what will allow me to control her through you.”  
  
His mind raced. He wasn’t entirely opposed to dying; he’d always known it would happen one day, though he hoped it would be for a good cause. But this couldn’t happen. Darkel was mad. She’d had no qualms about enslaving multiple planets and slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands, of slaves just to save herself. What would she do with a fresh body, a healthy TARDIS, and access to all the power Rose held inside her?  
  
This couldn’t happen. But there was nothing he could do to stop it.  
  
He struggled as hard as he could against the restraints as the Releshi assistants strapped another helmet onto Darkel’s misshapen head. It had been designed specially for her, accomodating the horrific gap on one side of her skull and her mangled ears.  
  
There was a flash of blue light, the sound of a withered body crumpling to the floor, and for a moment he knew nothing.  
  
When he came back to himself he knew his own brand of pain. Everything that made him who he was had been compressed, shoved into a corner of his own mind. He could feel Darkel’s dingy, rotted self swirling around his brain, making it her own. A psychograft, then. He clung on to what little space he had left with every bit of determination left inside him.   
  
“Don’t bother, Doctor,” he heard his own voice say. “I haven’t the time to go after you now, but it will be easier on both of us if we don’t overtax this brain.”  
  
That - an idea came to him. If he could overload his brain, he should be able to destroy it. He probably wouldn’t regenerate, but when he died he would take Darkel with him.  
  
“Don’t even try it, Doctor,” she said. “Don’t think I can’t see all your whims and your dislike of law and every crime you’ve ever committed and your nasty little penchant for human girls and your capacity for destruction and everything else that makes you who you are. I can use your own ideas against you. And if you die now, what will happen to your precious pet?”  
  
Still strapped to the console, she lifted the Doctor’s hands and touched Rose’s temples. They surged forward together, battering down the barriers in Rose’s mind. They flew past the new structures in her mind, her memories, her knowledge, even her link to the TARDIS. Everything was dim and foggy, as though covered in a shroud.  
  
Like she was dying.  
  
 _What’s the matter with her? What have you done?_  
  
“Oh, the Time Lords developed all sorts of delightful things toward the end of the war, as you well know, Doctor. This was one of my favorites - total personality deletion. Then you could implant a whole new personality and send the person back home as a weapon in waiting, none of their friends or family the wiser.”  
  
The Doctor’s whole soul screamed out in horror, but he had no time to contemplate what it meant or if he could save her. He knew what Darkel sought, and he had no way to stop her from finding it. It drew her like a beacon in stormy seas, just as it had himself and the Master.  
  
The glowing door.  
  
The Vortex.  
  
Darkel rushed at it, seeking a gap or a weak point to force it open. He could feel her using his mind to pull and push it. Rose’s mind shuddered and he could feel the force of it. Darkel was undeterred.  
  
Then it was open, and the Doctor lost his grip on the tiny portion of himself he still controlled. His whole self was blown backward and away from the Vortex; he couldn’t sense what had happened to Darkel at all.  
  
The last thing he heard before the blackness took him was the familiar vworp of his TARDIS materializing somewhere nearby.


	18. Chapter 18

  
Rose woke up in the most pleasant fashion she had since her misadventure with the Doctor had begun weeks ago.  
  
She was lying on a soft, comfortable surface, stretched out on her side. She was alone in the bed, but someone was sitting at her side, gently stroking her back. With a jolt she remembered Darkel, and her dead TARDIS, and the thousands of babies, their screams in her mind so overwhelming she had retreated into herself to hide from them. She had felt the Doctor’s fear through their link, but before she could offer him any reassurance, there had been something else, a suffocating cloud that infiltrated every part of her until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.  
  
Then the link between them had seized up, as though it was about to be cut, and her sense of the Doctor had diminished like they were far apart, instead of right next to each other. Then something surged toward her, a foreign mind invading her own. She’d felt that pain once before, but this was different. Darkel was so enormous, so forceful and foreign in comparison with Cassandra, and her whole mind was open to Darkel in a way it hadn’t been with the bitchy skin flap. She had been unable to prevent Darkel from accessing her link with the Vortex through the TARDIS. Rose swallowed hard, unable to fight a feeling of guilt. At the end of the day Darkel would never have been able to get access to that power if Rose hadn’t willingly taken it into herself. Why hadn’t she considered what a danger she would pose to those around her? Why hadn’t she listened to the Doctor or regarded his fear as sensibly founded?  
  
And where in the universe was she right now? She didn’t remember anything after Darkel forced the door in her mind open. She obviously wasn’t in Darkel’s lab any more. Had she missed the good part again?  
  
She rolled onto her back, took a deep breath and opened her eyes.  
  
The TARDIS was looking down at her, her unearthly eyes sad.  
  
“I am so sorry, my Wolf,” she said.  
  
Rose sat up. They were in the replica of her mother’s Estate flat again. She was in her own bed, the comforter the same garish pink she’d selected at thirteen. Even the smells were familiar, unwashed laundry and the slight mildew odor of the ever-damp concrete walls of the Powell Estate. She reminded herself that anything she smelled here was only a part of her memories. She touched her hair tentatively, relieved to find it its original length before reminding herself it would still be chopped with all the artistry of a toddler given his first set of scissors when she woke up. She sighed. Why did the TARDIS have her here now? Wasn’t there a psychopathic Time Lady to stop?  
  
“What are you sorry for? None of that was your fault.”  
  
The TARDIS wore a very familiar expression, the same sort the Doctor wore whenever he realized they’d arrived on the latest (safe, Rose, of course it’s safe, have I ever taken you somewhere that wasn’t - no, don’t answer that question) planet in the midst of the worst war it had ever seen. “I can see all that was, all that is, all that will be. But I do not see the minds and hearts of the ephemerals, and they do not always behave in the manner I expect.”  
  
“What happened? She was going to open the Vortex, she thought she could use it to heal herself.”  
  
“And so she did, my Wolf, but she badly damaged you and my Thief in the process. Your minds are mostly intact. But your flesh bodies were badly damaged. The Thief, in particular…” she sighed. “The other Time Lord had many items whose existence I was unaware of. She used them to do significant damage to your brains. But that is not our biggest problem.”  
  
Massive brain damage to both her and the Doctor sounded like a pretty serious problem to Rose. But then the TARDIS had never seen things the way an “ephemeral” would. Rose decided to address the smaller issue first. “Er...how am I here if my brain is damaged? Isn’t this just a representation of one of my memories?”  
  
“You are a part of me, my Wolf. The Doctor is bonded to me as only a full Time Lord can be. I recovered as much of you as I could take on before too many of your cells died, but I arrived too late to prevent the fallen Time Lady from doing much more damage. To your bodies...and to the universe.”  
  
Rose’s mouth felt dry and she imagined she had a bottle of water on her bedside table. It appeared there immediately, and she took a long drink. “What did she do?”  
  
“I did not imagine someone educated by the Time Lords would take such a risk, even one who had lost her grip on sanity. She used your link to me, and to the Vortex, to heal herself. Her body is whole.”  
  
“Right, that’s what she said she was going to do. I sort of agreed to help her, but I didn’t realize...”  
  
“You could not have known what she intended. She ripped a hole in this universe, and it is in extreme danger of collapse. It will collapse, has collapsed, if we do not act to prevent it.”  
  
“What? She did it on purpose?”  
  
“I believe so. I do not know her motivations. Perhaps she wishes to return to our original universe.”  
  
Rose sat back hard on her bed, before bounding back up and pacing around the room like her Doctor did when he was in a manic mood. Well, that had ended about as badly as it was possible for something to end. The TARDIS stared out the fake window and sighed again.  
  
“There’s something else, isn’t there? Where is Darkel now?”  
  
The TARDIS’s eye twitched. It was strange, as she thought about it - every time she’d talked directly with the TARDIS, she seemed more and more...human. Was it possible she was changing the TARDIS as much as the TARDIS was changing her? “Yes, my Wolf.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“My daughter.” The TARDIS sighed again, and her fingers clenched at the windowsill of Rose’s imaginary room. “The Time Lady has my daughter.”  
  
“The Master’s TARDIS? What happened to the Master?”  
  
“He is, I believe, unharmed. He did not reach my daughter in time to prevent Darkel from barring him entrance. She isn’t, wasn’t, fully grown. She will not, could not, survive a journey through the Void without my assistance.”  
  
As the TARDIS got progressively more upset, her use of tenses became looser. Rose reached out, taking the older woman’s hand. “What about…” she swallowed hard again, remembering the pain and terror echoing through every fiber of her being as she was overwhelmed by the baby TARDISes. “What about the other TARDISes?”  
  
The TARDIS shuddered. “I had sensed, can sense, them here. They called to me, call to me, will call to me, begging for my assistance. Their calls rippled through the universe, leading me here again and again. I did not know, could not have known, what the Time Lady had planned for them. She ripped their…” Her hands flailed briefly with frustration. “This human language is so imprecise. It does not, has not, will not allow me to communicate accurately. Their essences were, are torn from them to stabilize the gap in space-time. Even with so many half-deaths, the gap will cease to exist in an hour’s time. When it ceases to exist, it will begin an unstoppable process through which this entire universe and everything in it will cease to exist as well.”  
  
Rose sat back down on the bed. She could still smell the rot of the corpses littering the interior of the castle. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to forget it, human and alien bodies thrown together like so many bits of rubbish. How many people - how many lives had Darkel destroyed to get what she wanted? “We can’t save them.”  
  
“No, my Wolf. They are gone.”  
  
“Who can we save?”  
  
The TARDIS turned to look at her, her eyes glowing gold, conveying her message much more effectively than any simple words. Rose nodded. “I’ll do it, you know. You don’t have to ask.”  
  
“Do what?”  
  
Both women’s heads turned at the sound of the familiar voice in the doorway. The Doctor stood there, his face haggard and worn, though his hair and clothing were impeccable. Rose clenched her fists at her sides. He’d fight it, she knew. Wouldn’t want to allow her.  
  
But in one glimpse of the TARDIS and her infinite knowledge, they had both known it was the only way.  
  
  
****  
  
The Doctor awoke abruptly.  
  
For a moment he was extremely confused. He was in a familiar location, but he hadn’t been here for more than half a century. Not since he’d gone back to collect a few mementos of his lost companion in the aftermath of the battle at Canary Wharf.  
  
He was lying flat on his back on the sofa in Jackie Tyler’s worn, moth-eaten living room.  
  
He considered his memories of where he’d just been - trapped inside Darkel’s makeshift laboratory/mass grave on Kellisarium - and decided this must not be real. He hadn’t been this disoriented since the time the Master had knocked him unconscious and attempted to hijack the TARDIS, and that had been thirty years ago by his own reckoning. After a few minutes and a resolve to never let the other man out of his sight again, he’d been back to himself. This was obviously no simple knock on the head. Nor could it only be the drugs Darkel had used on him.  
  
He wasn’t sure where he was in reality, to have gone someplace so utterly absurd in his mind. Had he died, finally? Darkel had taken over his body and everything that made him Doctor had been crushed into a tiny corner of his mind. It had been nothing like the last time he’d been subjected to a psychograft, Darkel’s Time Lord consciousness infinitely larger and more powerful than Cassandra’s simple human one. She had forced him back as easily as she might have swatted an insect. Was she running amok somewhere in his body, while he…what was he doing? Napping on the sofa? He had napped on Jackie’s sofa once or twice during his visits there with Rose, lulled by the soft background noise of their television and the strange feeling of safety he’d always felt when ensconced in Rose’s childhood home, her warm body pressed up against his side, his arm wrapped around her shoulders.  
  
But this flat had been let to another tenant years prior, after Jackie and Rose were determined to have died at Torchwood headquarters, though their bodies had never been found.  
  
Maybe this was what happened when a Time Lord died and didn’t regenerate. Maybe they spent eternity in a facsimile of the places where they’d been happiest.  
  
That was a lovely thought, but if there was something like the humans’ notion of heaven or an afterlife, the Doctor sincerely doubted he’d wind up someplace he liked. There was far too much blood on his hands that could never be washed away. Too many years running from the consequences of his actions.  
  
He also doubted that a two-bedroom flat in a run-down council estate in south London fit anyone’s twisted notion of what heaven should be.  
  
Were those voices he was hearing down the short hallway?  
  
He rose to his feet, checking that his suit was in place. Everything was as it should be; no screws in his skull, no headgear crushing his hair flat. In fact, he noted that each tuft of his brown hair was perfectly in place, as though he’d just come from styling it.  
  
Well, if he was dead, at least he had really great hair.  
  
He strode down the short hallway toward the sound of hushed voices. Jackie’s bedroom door was wide open, the bed neatly made with a hideous orange-and-green floral bedspread. The door to Rose’s room was open a crack. One of the voices coming from inside was familiar. The other was one he’d never heard before, but something in it struck a chord in him. His curiosity overcame his fear of being observed and he tilted his head toward the crack, listening closely.  
  
“We can’t save them,” Rose said, her voice cracking slightly as though she was about to cry.  
  
“No, my Wolf. They are gone.”  
  
There was a long pause, as though Rose was thinking things over. Should he open the door, alert them to his presence? Did they know he was here?  
  
Then Rose spoke again, her voice strong and firm, not quite hiding the quaver he could still hear with his superior Gallifreyan aural anatomy. “Who can we save?”  
  
Who were they talking about? The Kellisari? He pushed open the door to reveal Rose sitting on her bright pink bed, her legs crossed at the ankle. Neither she nor the other woman - a brunette he’d never seen before in his life wearing a torn, dirty nineteenth-century gown - noticed his entrance. They were looking at each other intently, and though he couldn’t see the other woman’s face, Rose’s eyes glowed gold in a manner he was becoming far too familiar with. Rose said, “I’ll do it, you know. You don’t have to ask.”  
  
“Do what?” he blurted.  
  
Rose looked over at him, her eyes widening. Then she leaped from the bed and straight into his arms, burying her face in his jacket. “You’re here! You’re okay! You’re still you!”  
  
“Where is ‘here’, I’m not so sure about that, and yes, obviously, I’m always me, no matter what I look like. You know that, Rose Tyler,” he chided her. Unable to resist, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. Her aroma filled his nostrils and he sighed, relaxing almost against his will.  
  
Against his will - his head shot up as he glared at the other figure in the room. “Who are you? What have you been doing to us? Where are we? What the hell is happening on Kellisarium?”  
  
Rose pulled her face out of his chest and looked at the other woman for a moment. She cleared her throat and said, “Doesn’t she feel familiar?”  
  
“Familiar? No. Never seen her before in all my lives. Well...yes, a little, I suppose. But I haven’t the faintest idea why.”  
  
“The first time we talked like this, she told me you call her Sexy.”  
  
The Doctor released Rose and took several steps backward, unable to hide the alarm on his face. “No. It can’t be. She isn’t - she’s sentient, but she doesn’t exist the way we do. She can’t think like us, or speak, or -”  
  
“No, of course not,” Rose agreed. “This is just a space she’s made for us - well, for me, really - within her memory banks. A safe place, where I can’t be harmed. She can’t manifest this way anywhere else.”  
  
“But even if that was possible how could she - this person, this woman - who was she? Where did she get this image?”  
  
The woman was looking at them both, her head tilted to one side, a kindly expression on her face. “My Thief. I never got to speak with you in this timeline. But in another timeline, in our original universe, I was removed from the TARDIS matrix and forcefully implanted in a human body. You were, will be able to restore me to my shell before the body died from the effects. This is what that body looked and sounded like. I saved the form and have used it to communicate with my Wolf, as her telepathic abilities are both more limited than your own, and untrained.”  
  
“What? You can’t have records of events that never happened!”  
  
“ _You_  can’t,” the woman said evenly. “I am a TARDIS. And since my Wolf became one with me, I am more than a TARDIS. As she took a part of myself into her, I took a part of her intrinsic humanity into myself. It occurred to me that direct communication might sometimes be an effective strategy, so I manifested a small part of myself as a human, able to communicate as they do.”  
  
The Doctor licked his lips, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. Could this be some kind of strange hallucination? He walked toward the woman in gray, who stood unmoving before him. He reached out and touched her face. Her skin felt warm and soft as any human woman’s, but the jolt of recognition that went through his mind was unmistakable.  
  
The same warm welcome he felt everytime he’d entered his TARDIS since that day long ago with Susan at his side. “I stole you,” he said slowly.  
  
“And I stole you,” she agreed. “The Time Lords were so stodgy and boring, but you seemed like you might be fun. I opened my door, and in you came, two little Time Lords who wanted to run away.”  
  
“But…” he stammered and was surprised to find his voice choked with tears. “What does it mean? Why are we here, now? And why...why haven’t you ever shown me this before?”  
  
“Oh my Thief,” she said, clasping her own hand around his. “I wanted to, oh how I wanted. But you were not ready. Even now, a part of you refuses to accept what must be, what will be.” With her last words her gaze shifted towards Rose, who had observed this scene without comment, though a single tear rolled slowly down her cheek.  
  
“I’m so glad you’ll still have each other,” Rose said.  
  
“What do you mean?” The women looked at each other again, their eyes steady and clear. He wondered if they could read each others’ thoughts. Neither spoke, and Rose cast her eyes towards the floor. “One of you, answer me!”  
  
“The time grows near,” the TARDIS said.  
  
“I know. I can feel it,” Rose told her.  
  
The Doctor could feel something too, the same sense of dread he’d borne every day since he’d pulled his formerly human companion from another universe. Every time something unfortunate had occurred, he’d briefly thought that the sensation would dissipate, but it never had, remaining there deep within him. His time sense was rarely wrong, but he didn’t always understand it. He didn’t understand this.  
  
He turned back to the TARDIS. “Was it you? Manipulating me - manipulating us! Making me feel things I didn’t want to feel, remember things I had hidden from myself, do things I wouldn’t have done?”  
  
“Yes, my Thief. It was necessary. I only regret that I could not have been more clear, and made the situation less unpleasant for the both of you. I know you both so well, but I cannot always predict your actions. Nor can I tell you everything you might wish to know. You know that, my Thief.”  
  
“Where are our bodies now?” Rose asked, ignoring his heated accusations.  
  
“Inside me. The other Time Lord is with you.”  
  
“What will happen when we wake up?”  
  
“You should be able to pull enough artron energy from me to heal your physical form. The Doctor must force himself to enter a healing coma.”  
  
“No,” the Doctor insisted. “What’s going on?”  
  
“You have to, Doctor, or else you’ll regenerate. I cannot guarantee your regeneration will be successful after Darkel’s abuse of your brain.”  
  
“How do you even know?” he asked the TARDIS heatedly. Then he addressed Rose. “And if you can heal yourself, why can’t you do the same for me?”  
  
Rose finally looked him in the eye. “Darkel - she tore a hole in this universe, trying to get back to where we all came from. I’m going to repair it.”  
  
Her words rolled through his mind several times before he finally gathered what she meant. “Rose, you can’t! Not without me to pull you back!”  
  
“You’re not strong enough right now, Doctor. Darkel hurt you a lot worse than she hurt me. And if you die trying to pull me back, it won’t work anyway.”  
  
“What are you saying? That you’re going to sacrifice yourself?”  
  
She sighed and walked toward him, wrapping her arms around his slim frame. He stiffened and held his arms straight at his sides, refusing to embrace her. “It’s safer this way, Doctor. The universe needs you. You’ll have the Master, and the TARDIS.”  
  
“Not if you go mad and collapse the universe all on your own!”  
  
“I won’t,” she assured him. Her utter calm when he was shouting in her face was unnerving. She had made up her mind, and Rose had always been too stubborn for her own good. His hands gripped her upper arms with enough force to bruise. If he could hold her here, hold her to him - “I love you, Doctor. I’m so glad we got to have this little bit of time together, even if it wasn’t always the happiest time.”  
  
“Rose,” he said helplessly, the tears that had gathered in his eyes streaking down his face. “I can’t lose you again, Rose. I was willing to tear the universe apart for you! Don’t you understand that?”  
  
“I know. That’s why I have to do this.”  
  
“Please, please,” he begged. “Anything but this, let me help, I can’t just sit and let you- “  
  
Her lower lip trembled as she fought back her own tears. “You’ll be - well, you might not be fine, but you’ll live, and that’s the important thing. That’s all I ever wanted. My Doctor, safe.”  
  
With those words she turned and slipped from his grasp. “Rose!” he shouted. “Rose!”  
  
The little pink bedroom was empty. Rose and the TARDIS were gone.  
  
He didn’t understand how he could scream himself hoarse inside a memory bank, but that was what he did.

 


	19. Chapter 19

  
  
Rose shut the TARDIS door behind her, her heart in her throat and her hands shaking violently.  
  
Despite what she’d said to the Doctor, and the brave face she’d put on for the TARDIS, she wasn’t at all certain she could close the gap in space-time without losing control. She could already feel the energy gathering inside her, welling up from that bit of the heart of the TARDIS that had remained inside her despite the Doctor’s best efforts. It was so strong, so overwhelming, it was no wonder she remembered little of her previous experience with it. She had used it to heal herself of the considerable damage Darkel had done to her brain, and even that small effort had been like trying to channel a waterfall through her fingers. She could maintain control, but she could also feel the force of the torrent just barely held back.  
  
If she lost control, there was only one thing she’d be able to do to stop herself from becoming the monster the Doctor was so afraid of.  
  
She just prayed she’d have the strength of will to do it. That the Wolf would remember who she really was, who she’d have to go back to being once she was done. That Rose Tyler would pay for the Wolf’s actions.  
  
She was also terrified of what might happen to the Doctor; her brief discussion with the TARDIS had not been encouraging. She couldn’t imagine him regenerating, becoming a whole new man again. At least she could take comfort that he wouldn’t be alone - the Master would stay with him. She was absolutely certain of that.  
  
But she had to do this.  
  
Everything that had happened here was her fault. She had chosen to twist and warp creation itself to her own ends, and this was the result. This universe, full of innocent people going about their everyday lives, was about to be torn apart.  
  
 _You created them_ , a part of her whispered.  _They owe their existence to you._  
  
“No,” Rose muttered angrily, speaking aloud to drown out the little voice. “I won’t become that. I can’t think like that. That’s not who I am. I’m never going to be like the Master was. I’m...I’m…” she trailed off and almost laughed. “I’m talking to myself.”  
  
She looked around the room. It was full of those innocent people. Nobody entered this slaughterhouse by choice except Darkel. At the thought she looked around but didn’t see the Time Lady or any other humanoids.   
  
Most of the blinding overhead lights had gone out, leaving the enormous, windowless room dim and dusty. A quick glance toward the ceiling showed broken and dangling light fixtures above her head. A whole flock of Kellisari soared erratically around the room, crashing into each other and the various obstacles left by the corpse of the dead TARDIS. There were more corpses and still bodies scattered about. Both the Releshi who had drilled into her skull were sprawled on the ground, clearly past help by the condition of their bodies. Her fingers went to stroke her head. She shivered when she touched soft skin and hard bone beneath. The evidence of what they’d done to her had disappeared already. Of course, her hair was still a mess, tangled and dirty and cut to hang in her eyes.  
  
She didn’t know exactly what had happened in here after Darkel invaded her mind and she lost consciousness, but the black gap at the far edge of the huge room made her priorities clear. She had to get across the room and close that hole before even more people died.  
  
She forced herself not to dwell on the Doctor and the mess she’d made of things with him. What she’d done to him, just as bad or worse than what he’d done to her. She doubted he would forgive her. How would she ever forgive herself? She felt a lump rise in her throat and swallowed angrily against it. She shouldn’t be crying. This was her chance to fix things, as much as it was possible to do.  
  
Steeling herself, she crept forward, keeping her head low in case one of the Kellisari decided to swoop down. She needed to be near one of the edges of the gap so she could grasp it with the energy she channeled from the TARDIS. She could see one shimmering against the far edge of the room, the gap between reality and unreality painful to behold with the naked eye.  
  
She felt a stirring in her mind; the Doctor was awake. She cursed inwardly. She had hoped that he would sleep until she was done. Now he would try to interfere for certain.   
  
 _Rose?_  he shouted in her mind, making her flinch. She slammed her shields up as hard as she could, feeling the pressure of him in her mind recede. She couldn’t afford to have him interfere now. She’d have to hurry before he inevitably found a way.  
  
That was when the world shattered into infinity.  
  
Every possible outcome of every possible action of every one of the occupants of the room appeared to her all at once. There was no way to make sense of the foaming cacophony. The timelines washed over her and through her. They pulled her consciousness away, lost in an endless maelstrom of possibilities.  
  
She struggled and fought, but it was no use. The vortex energy was too strong.  
  
Rose Tyler went to sleep, and the Bad Wolf woke up.  
  
****  
  
It took every ounce of fight he had in him (and being the Doctor, he had more fight than the average being), but he pulled himself back to consciousness.  
  
It was like swimming upwards through an ocean of oily sludge; the weight of the substance he was suspended in so heavy that it his body begged him to give in, to let the healing coma take him and soothe him to rest.  
  
He could sense Rose distantly; she was nearby but not in the same room. He reached out for her, shouting her name in his mind. He felt her flinch and withdraw from him, forcing her shields up and walling him out. Then his sense of her went fuzzy. Confused, he reached for her again.  
  
A rolling wave of vortex energy surged through him, making him gasp with pain.  
  
“No, no, no, no,” he groaned. He had to get to her before she did something unbelievably stupid. He would never forgive himself any of this. He’d been blind to what was really happening for so long. If Rose burned - he didn’t think he would survive it. He didn’t think he wanted to.  
  
He forced his eyelids to open but was unable to prevent them from slamming shut again as the bright light of the med bay scoured his retinas.  
  
If his eyes wouldn’t open he could use his other senses. He was lying on something hard and cold; it must be the med bay table. He didn’t pause to think about how he’d gotten there. He simply threw all his weight to one side and hit the hard tiles below with a grunt. The pain of impact was negligible compared to the pain of fighting the regeneration.  
  
His legs wouldn’t work. Angrily, he attempted to drag himself with his hands, his fingertips digging into the hard floor until his fingernails tore and bled. He wasn’t about to let his body, of all the inconsequential things, stop him from saving Rose. He would have let himself regenerate, to try to heal the damage, but he was afraid he’d lose consciousness for an extended period. The door was so close, he could almost reach it with his shredded fingers. He managed to shuffle forward far enough to brush up against it, and the concerned hum of the TARDIS intensified.  
  
“Shut up, you,” he snarled aloud. “This is your fault! We’re going to lose her!”  
  
There was a slight impression of chagrin, and also of stubbornness with a keen edge of hope. If he’d had the strength he would have shaken his head in disbelief. How could she still believe things could work out?  
  
Then a strong hand grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him off the floor. The arm attached to the hand tucked itself around his shoulder and set him on his feet, grabbing him hard and keeping him upright as his legs immediately gave out underneath him.  
  
“Don’t,” the Doctor slurred. “I need to -”  
  
“What, regenerate before you even get the door open? Do you think you’re the only one with a stake in this? Come along.”  
  
And without waiting for the Doctor to argue, the Master wrenched the TARDIS door open with one hand and dragged the Doctor through it with the other.  
  
  
****  
  
In the shell of the dead TARDIS, the Bad Wolf pondered her next course of action.  
  
She calculated she had approximately fifteen minutes to close the gap before the destabilization of the universe was irreversible. She was confident she could seal it before any significant damage was done.  
  
It was fortunate that she had some time, because there were other issues she needed to take care of. It was imperative that she not be interrupted once she started to close the gap.  
  
Her first priority would have to be the enormous winged avians flapping about in a frenzy. She couldn’t have them disrupting her efforts. As she watched, two purple birds flew above the rest, squawking fiercely. The rest of the avians began to calm, flying straighter and coming in to land.  
  
They all landed in between her and the gap in the fabric of space-time.  
  
The squawking grew louder as the birds looked at her. She looked back at them impassively. They could not hurt her, but she was curious as to what they might try.  
  
They approached her slowly and warily, as though they were afraid she might attack. She bared her teeth in a grin. They were right about that, at least.   
  
She allowed them to near her, waiting for the right moment and wondering what they might have to say.  
  
One of the birds fastened its thick, prehensile claws around her arm. She looked in fascination at the appendages; they were almost like human fingers, each tipped with a razor-sharp claw.   
  
“You will come with us and explain,” the bird said, its voice so high-pitched it would have been difficult for Rose to understand, though the Wolf had no such difficulty. “Explain what has happened here. Explain this confusion. Explain the presence of this technology.”  
  
The Bad Wolf contemplated this. It was not unreasonable that the inhabitants of this planet wanted to understand what was going on. However, it was not her place to explain. The first priority had to be stopping the impending disaster, whether the birds grasped the danger they were in or not. She wrenched her arm free from the bird without difficulty. It squawked indignantly and grabbed both her hands, pulling them together behind her back.  
  
The Wolf frowned, thinking. The Doctor-that-was wouldn’t have wanted her to kill the Kellisari. What about the Doctor, now? Did it matter? She hadn’t intended to hurt the birds, but they insisted on interfering.   
  
She cocked her head thoughtfully. If she simply knocked them unconscious, they might wake up before the Wolf accomplished her goals. There was a better way. She reached inside herself and pulled the energy infusing her whole body out.  
  
Every bird in the room froze as though they’d been coated in ice. She was satisfied; as long as she remained conscious and connected to the TARDIS, the birds would stay where they were, unharmed and unable to interrupt.  
  
She frowned again, deeper this time. The Doctor would no doubt attempt to interfere soon. His good intentions would doom them all. She needed to do what she had come to do before he arrived. Aside from the Doctor himself, there was one more potential source of interruption.  
  
With that thought in mind, she walked to the TARDIS disguised as a column and knocked politely on the door.  
  
There was no answer, as she had expected. She flattened her hand against the baby TARDIS, sending the mental equivalent of a snuggle her way. The young TARDIS reacted immediately, informing the Bad Wolf that she was frightened of the Time Lady who had entered her.  
  
 _Let me in_ , she murmured.  _Let me in. I can help._  
  
She heard a click as the door unlocked itself and she smiled. She closed her eyes and willed away the glow that lit them from within. Better Darkel believe she was just Rose.  
  
Inside, the rogue Time Lady was intently pounding away at the console. The Bad Wolf could feel the time machine’s agita as she attempted to override the Master’s settings. She could also see that the woman was ill and in distress. Her skin was chalky white and wisps of regeneration energy leaked from the corners of her mouth. The Bad Wolf inspected her timeline and saw that she would soon become unconscious without medical intervention, her Time Lord biology forcing her into a healing coma. Her desperation to launch the TARDIS before that happened had her in a fury. She had taken a blunt object to a portion of the console, leaving one section smashed beyond repair. As the Wolf watched, she kicked the bottom of the console with frustration.  
  
“Stop,” the Wolf said.  
  
Darkel jumped almost imperceptibly and then looked up, her eyes narrowing. “I thought I killed you.” Her voice was clear and her accent lilting. All traces of the monstrous body she’d had before seemed gone. She looked not much older than Rose now. Her hair was shoulder-length and ash-blond. Her body was slim and petite. She had found a pair of trousers and a t-shirt several sizes too big, presumably in the Master’s closet. While the Master was not a particularly large man, his clothes buried Darkel, making her look young and innocent.  
  
Her mind, on the other hand, still throbbed with an ancient poison. The Wolf could sense the evil in her. Darkel had carried it so long she’d forgotten who she had once been. Her body had healed, but her twisted spirit and mind had not.  
  
Nevertheless, she was clearly very clever, having managed to trick and overwhelm the Doctor. The Wolf knew she should be wary.  
  
Then the Bad Wolf smiled. This was a game she was going to enjoy playing. “I’m very hard to kill,” she said, in Rose’s voice.   
  
“Apparently!” the other woman spat, not moving from her spot at the console. “Are you going to get out of here, or are you going to make me kill you again?”  
  
“You’re hurting this TARDIS,” the Wolf replied. “Can’t you feel it?”  
  
“Not as much as I’m going to hurt her if she doesn’t let me override the Master’s isomorphic controls,” Darkel snapped.  
  
“It’s not a question of what she’ll allow. I won’t let you hurt her.”  
  
“And how are you planning on stopping me?”  
  
“Like this,” the Wolf said, and raised a hand.  
  
With a whiplike slash, Darkel was sent flying into the sleek metal wall of the console room. Her skull hit so hard it dented the metal, leaving an impression of her head.  
  
The Bad Wolf strode around the console and stood over the dazed Time Lady. “You must stop now. You cannot return to the prime universe.”  
  
“I can and I will,” Darkel snarled from her position prone on the floor. She struggled to her feet, rubbing at the back of her skull as she attempted to back away from the Wolf. “We can’t stay in this universe. There are no Time Lords here.” There was a pleading note in her voice by the end of her last sentence.  
  
“Any further disruption of the gap will cause this universe to collapse.”  
  
“This universe should never have existed in the first place!”  
  
The Wolf studied her opponent carefully. The Time Lady stood with her arms crossed not five feet away, her face neutral, but the Wolf knew she was full of fear. Fear was all she had left. What would she try to do? The Wolf could have looked at her timeline, but she wanted to be surprised. Surprises were so interesting.  
  
“You’re not Rose,” Darkel said, standing unmoving.  
  
“I am the Bad Wolf.”  
  
The baby TARDIS, having been silent since the Wolf entered, let out a warning scream in her mind. The Wolf narrowed her eyes, but Darkel had already produced a laser pistol and aimed it in her direction. The Wolf spared one of her infinite thoughts to wonder where she had gotten it, before remembering just whose TARDIS she was inside.   
  
“You may call yourself a fairytale name, but that’s a human body you’re inside.”  
  
“Don’t shoot,” the Wolf said. “You could hurt the baby TARDIS.”  
  
“Get out of this TARDIS, or I’ll kill you again,” Darkel snapped, the pistol in her hand wavering slightly.  
  
“No, you won’t,” the Wolf said. She didn’t move, still standing several feet from Darkel, in between the Time Lady and the silent console.  
  
Darkel’s eyes narrowed and she pulled the trigger.  
  
Faster than Darkel could see, the Wolf moved, and a wave of her hand sent the super-charged shot back toward its source. Darkel shrieked and lost her balance as the pistol exploded in her hand. Her head hit the floor hard for a second time and for a moment she lay unmoving.  
  
The Wolf moved closer.  
  
Darkel moaned and twitched, her eyes half-closed as she struggled to retain consciousness. She looked up at the Wolf, fear written all over her face. “Please,” she said.  
  
“Please, what?”  
  
“Please don’t kill me.”  
  
“I was never going to kill you,” the Bad Wolf said, and she knelt over the prone woman and placed both hands on either side of her head. Darkel stiffened and froze, unable to resist the sheer power the Wolf directed at her.  
  
She rummaged through the other woman’s mind ruthlessly, destroying every trace of Pandora she could find. The ancient Time Lady had left her mark on Darkel’s mind. Countless areas were blackened and silent. The Bad Wolf wondered who this Pandora had been, that she had managed to stay with Darkel not just through multiple regenerations but had even withstood the direct flow of artron energy Darkel had used to grow herself a new body.  
  
The Bad Wolf forced the damaged tissues to heal to a pristine state. The inactive areas slowly began to brighten as they sent signals to the rest of her brain for the first time in eons. Satisfied that she had restored the Time Lady to the state she’d been in before being possessed, she released her.  
  
For a long moment, the woman lay motionless on the smooth floor of the Master’s TARDIS. Then she began to moan.   
  
“Do you remember?” the Bad Wolf asked with interest.  
  
“No,” the other woman whimpered.  
  
“Yes, you do. You remember every awful thing you’ve done, every innocent person you killed.”  
  
“No,” Darkel moaned again.  
  
“You are healed,” the Wolf said. “And you will remember.”  
  
Darkel responded with a sob, pressing her face into the floor and curling her hands into fists. Her ash-blond hair fell around her, hiding her face.  
  
“I can’t feel them,” she whispered. The Wolf heard her clearly. “I can’t hear them, they’re not there, it’s so empty.”  
  
“Your people are gone.”  
  
The TARDIS shook under their feet. Three minutes left. “The Void,” Darkel said hoarsely, her tear-streaked eyes wide. “Can you close it?”  
  
“Yes,” the Bad Wolf said. “Stay here.” It occurred to her that knocking the Time Lady unconscious wasn’t the optimal strategy; what if she woke up at an unfortunate cusp? She waved a hand at Darkel and the woman froze in place, temporarily removed from the flow of time.  
  
Then she lay a soothing hand on the console, reassuring the baby TARDIS that she would be all right.  
  
****  
  
They were too late.  
  
They could see Rose, nearly to the gap in space-time, golden light emanating from her every pore.   
  
She had frozen the Kellisari somehow. They were in various positions; some in midair with their wings fully spread, feathers not even quivering. Others had landed on the floor. One still stood with its wing extended in front of it and its beak open, as though it had been speaking and cut off in mid-sentence. He allowed one piece of his mind to ponder how she might have done that while the rest of him dedicated itself to summoning every scrap of strength he could muster. If he had his sonic he could figure it out, but there was no time for that.  
  
She had also done something to the dead TARDIS; its rotor and console were still limned in golden light. It lit the otherwise darkened room, casting shadows into every corner.  
  
He started forward, ignoring the pain that shot through his body, and the Master followed warily.   
  
Rose didn’t turn around. He couldn’t even be certain she realized he was there. He reached out for her, a mental scream so loud the Master flinched beside him. There was an audible thud from inside the Master’s TARDIS and the other man instinctively started toward it.  
  
The Doctor barely noticed that the Master was gone as he started toward Rose. As the crack in the universe widened and grew, the difference in pressure between Kellisarium and nothingness caused the wind to rush through the huge room. The remains of Rose’s hair whipped around her head as she worked her way closer to the crack. He knew shouting would do no good. It was too loud to hear anything by now. And considering how slowly he was moving, there was no way he’d be able to push through the wind.  
  
 _Rose, please._  
  
There was no response from her. Her walls remained high, holding back the snarling of the Wolf.   
  
The Doctor used words like weapons, but he never found them adequate to express what he was feeling. Especially when those feelings were about Rose Tyler. So instead he pushed his roiling stew of emotions in her direction. Anger at her for what she’d done. Terror at what she was about to do. Admiration for what she had achieved - a part of him always appreciated greatness no matter what form it took. Adoration for everything she was and had been. And love, the love he’d felt for her for so long it had become a part of his actual being. He sent them all in her direction, hoping that one or two might penetrate her barriers.  
  
There was no reaction from her. She kept moving against the inexorable force, putting one foot in front of the other.  
  
He closed his eyes and filed through his memories of her, pushing them in her direction. He needed to remind her who she was and who she had been. He tossed as many as he could toward her, a barrage of everything she’d ever done to make him love her. He grinned at her in an elevator as she suggested students were responsible for the deadly mannequins. She braved a basement full of alien ghosts. She flirted with him, her tongue caught in her teeth. She stood in the door of the TARDIS, full of unnatural power for the first time, and he caught her and kissed it away. Then he was teasing her in front of Queen Victoria. Cuddled with her on a small double bed on a planet orbiting a black hole. He had wanted her that night and it was only the thought that he would be using her that stopped him from rolling her on her back and pushing hard inside her. Then she was falling, away from him and into the Void. He let her feel all the agony surrounding that memory.  
  
He felt her pull back for a moment. She turned and looked at him, and her eyes were ringed whiskey brown instead of gold.  
  
“I love you too,” he thought he heard over the wind.  
  
“Please let me in,” he begged her aloud and through their link. “Let me help you, let me help you control it!”  
  
“No,” she said. “You’re too weak now. You’ll die.”  
  
“So will you!”  
  
He was close enough to her now that he could see her swallow hard. “I'm responsible. Nobody else should have to suffer to end this.”  
  
“No! Rose, no, you can’t think like that, it’s - “  
  
He was cut off as the room rumbled ominously and a piece of the ceiling fell in, crushing what was left of the console.  
  
She shook her head and he watched one tear drip down her face. “I can’t let it go. There’s no time. It has to be now, Doctor.”  
  
Rose had reached the wall and laid her hand on it. The light from her briefly dimmed and she drew back.  
  
As they watched, the shaking and the wind abruptly stopped, and then the wind reversed, pulling loose debris toward the gap. It was closing rapidly and all the while the Wolf stood by, her hands on the wall and her eyes closed.  
  
Before the Doctor could reach her, she whipped her head around for one last glance in his direction. Then she leapt forward through the rapidly shrinking gap and into the Void.  
  
The Doctor’s hearts seemed to stop simultaneously as the gap sealed itself rapidly. He felt for the regeneration waiting inside him, biding its time. For the second time in this incarnation, he used it to heal his body before pushing it back down as hard as he could. He knew his regeneration was now inevitable - and possibly doomed to failure in any case - but he didn’t care. Without taking a moment to think, or to answer the Master’s shout behind him, he ran with every bit of his considerable Time Lord ability.  
  
He leapt into the remaining gap and it sealed itself shut behind him.


	20. Chapter 20

  
  
The Bad Wolf was banished as the connection to the TARDIS broke. Rose reemerged. There were no timelines in the void, no rush of artron energy to send her flying.  
  
There was no time in the void at all. There was only darkness, and silence, and her body perched on the edge of death, unable to breathe, her single heart incapable of beating. She was frozen and boiling at once. Her eyes were closed, but she knew that if she could open them there was nothing for her to see. The void was literally nothing.  
  
Rose wondered if she would ever actually die, or if she would be like this for all eternity.  
  
Then she instinctively took a breath, trying to stop herself when she realized what she was doing.   
  
Nothing happened, other than a burst of oxygen hitting Rose’s lungs. The thick air smelled dusty and vaguely of decay, much as it had deep inside the castle. Her enhanced mind agreed, declaring it identical to the mix of components on Kellisarium.  
  
How could that be possible? There was no air in the Void. Had some of it followed her through the gap? Would it disperse and she’d start to suffocate? She couldn’t remember making any accommodations for herself. She’d only made plans to end it if she lost control. She’d deliberately jumped through the gap to get away from the TARDIS and the power she drew to become Bad Wolf. She could only hope her hunch had worked and the new universe wasn’t collapsing on the Doctor and the Master. She wished she could remember, but her memories of the Bad Wolf were blurry. She was a part of the Wolf, but the power she contained was too enormous for her usual consciousness to process. Even a Time Lord, with their genetically engineered minds, would have gone insane or simply died from sheer overload. So instead her mind simply locked the memories away. It worked to keep the power at bay when she didn’t need it, but Rose desperately wished she had a clearer picture of what had happened just before she jumped.  
  
At least she was certain she had closed the gap. The universe should be safe, even if it might be reeling from some unpleasant repercussions for awhile. The Doctor was safe, and the Master, and even Darkel. She wondered what they would do with her. Would they let her live? Rose knew what her old Doctor would had done. This one she wasn’t so certain of.  
  
Strangely, though, she felt more like herself than she could remember since the Doctor had returned. Her head was clear and her thoughts were straightforward. She wondered why that was.  
  
It was a surprisingly pleasant change, whatever was causing it. She didn’t even feel empty like she’d expect, without the TARDIS or her Time Lords -   
  
 _Rose?_  
  
Please, no. No, no, no, no.  
  
 _I’m here. We’re together._  
  
She wanted to cry, her tear ducts welling. She understood the Doctor better than ever. No matter what she did, what precautions she took, he was never safe. He’d followed her here, into hell.   
  
 _I told you I was coming with you,_  he reminded her, clearly able to sense her agitation.  
  
 _I wanted you safe,_  she screamed at him.  _Why did you follow me? Why?_  
  
The Doctor breezily ignored her objections.  _Speaking of safe...how are we not dead? This isn’t in our heads. We’re definitely here and I’m definitely breathing enough oxygen to keep my lungs functioning without my respiratory bypass._  
  
Rose stopped, forcing her mind to stop spinning. His subject change was too obvious, but he asked the same question she did. This was the void - they should be corpses. She hadn’t noticed immediately, but she was sitting on something soft and pliable. She tried to open her eyes, and realized that they were already open. It was simply pitch black, with no light emanating from anything.  
  
There was a small buzz and a flash of blue to her right. She startled and then laughed. She could hear herself. The Doctor was right. Wherever they were, it had an atmosphere. “Is that your sonic?”  
  
“Yep!”  
  
“I’m not sure what happened - my memories are a bit jumbled. The Wolf is so strong, it’s like some of her thoughts just disappear when I wake up. Like a dream. But I remember - “ she frowned and reached out, leaning forward until her fingertips brushed against a smooth, cool surface. It was soft and pliable, and stretched around her fingers.   
  
“It’s a bubble,” the Doctor announced to the silence from a few feet away. “You made us a bubble.”  
  
“I guess I did,” Rose said bemusedly, rubbing her fingers together. They didn’t feel wet. There was no soapy or slippery sensation. She still couldn’t see a thing.  
  
“That’s brilliant! We won’t suffocate to death at least. Well.” She saw the flash of the sonic again as he studied the readings. “Not right away, anyway.”  
  
Rose shivered. Something about what he’d just said triggered her mind. “What happened, Doctor?”  
  
“You closed up the gap and jumped through to the Void and I -”  
  
She realized he was about to start rambling about what had just happened. “No, I know that - what happened with Darkel? Is she still alive?”  
  
He paused. “You don’t remember?”  
  
“I remember a lot. I remember those tatty weasels cut my hair and I don’t even have my mum in this universe to fix it for me.”  
  
He laughed softly. “If we get out of this I’m going to take you to see Herman Boreman.”  
  
“Herman Boreman?”  
  
“Most famous hairdresser in the whole universe.” He paused. “Hopefully he exists in this universe too. Though I suppose he isn’t likely to remember me. Pity, he still owes me for that trip to Bermuda in 1936. Still, I think we’ll be able to convince him to give you a new hairstyle.”  
  
“Did he do yours?”  
  
“I’ll have you know I created this hairstyle myself, Rose Tyler.”  
  
“That explains what my mum used to say about it.” She shifted and reached out for him, feeling blindly until she found the smooth threads of his jacket. She wrapped her fingers around the fabric and used it to tug herself to his side. “Don’t change the subject. I remember what Darkel did, how she abused our bond, I remember the pain, and I remember waking up on the TARDIS. What happened after that? After I...lost control?”  
  
She heard him swallow hard. “I...I don’t know, Rose. I wasn’t there.”  
  
Rose was silent for a long moment. She could feel the guilt emanating from him. Then she said quietly, “And you thought you were keeping me safer bonding with me, didn’t you?”  
  
He let out a choked sound that might have been a laugh. “I think we can officially declare I’m incapable of keeping anyone safe, especially you, Rose Tyler.”  
  
“It’s not your fault, you know. You didn’t know what would happen.”  
  
“No, I didn’t, and I went ahead and acted rashly and irrationally anyway.”  
  
Rose sighed. “So did I, Doctor. I didn’t understand the consequences of anything I did that day on the Game Station. That didn’t stop me from altering multiple timelines and creating new universes. I’m the one who got us into this mess in the first place.” She felt the lump in her throat rise again when she thought of the events of the past few days. “I don’t understand how you don’t hate me after everything I’ve done. I hate myself.”  
  
“Hate you?” She heard him shift and felt him wrap an arm around her, pulling her close to the subtle warmth of his body. “I could never hate you. You’re...you’re everything to me.” She let herself slowly relax into his grip. “It’s utterly mad, but I don’t even regret everything that’s happened. Not really. Not when I’ve got you back by my side.”  
  
“I know,” she whispered. “I feel the same way. But I…” She trailed off, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, does it? None of it. I did it, I sealed up that universe. But we’re stuck here and we’ve got no way to get out.”  
  
There was another long silence before the Doctor sighed. “There’s a 2.4 percent chance the Master could breach the walls and come rescue us. But even if he does, there’s a 72.5 percent chance the universe will destabilize again.” There was a pause as Rose absorbed the grim news. “Plus he probably thinks we’re already dead, since that’s what typically happens to people who jump into the void. Not to mention he’s already decided he’s better off without me.”  
  
“Oh, you know that’s not true,” Rose said. “He loves you, Doctor. Even if he’s even worse than you are at showing it.”  
  
The Doctor snorted. “He’s been obsessed with me since we were kids. That’s not love.”  
  
“How are you so smart and so stupid all at once? I’ve been in his head and I’ve had him in mine. And I know you’ve been in each other’s heads, too. How can you not understand how you feel about each other?”  
  
The Doctor groaned. “If we’ve only got hours left to live, can we please talk about something less...aggravating?”  
  
“I’m right,” Rose sing-songed. Then she sobered. “Hours? Is that how long it’ll be til we run out of air?”  
  
“About two hours and thirty-six minutes. I’ve got a respiratory bypass, of course, so I’ll make it a little longer, but…” she felt his torso move as he shrugged.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“I’m not. Well. I’m sorry we ended up stuck in the void, but if I have to die, I’m glad I get to do it with you by my side.”  
  
“Yeah?” Rose asked softly.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
In the pitch blackness Rose could see virtually nothing. The rest of her senses enhanced as her brain attempted to make sense of what was happening. She felt the tip of the Doctor’s finger make its way down her cheek, until it reached her chin and tilted her head upwards. His lips met hers and she melted into him. His hands made their way down her sides and around her back and he pulled her against him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and ran her nails down the back of his scalp. He groaned into her mouth and she suppressed a giggle.  
  
“You’re like a cat.”  
  
He scoffed. “Time Lords are not descended from any feline species.”  
  
“Wouldn’t know it from how much you love getting your head scratched,” Rose teased.  
  
“Shut up. Just don’t stop scratching. If we’re going to die, at least the nerve endings in my scalp will die happy.”  
  
Rose snickered and heard the Doctor let out a snort before he emitted a very unmanly giggle. It was so high-pitched Rose’s own laughter turned to giggles and she collapsed into his lap, laughing so hard her stomach muscles started to ache.  
  
He slid an arm under her to pull her upright against him and out of the corner of her eye she saw a flicker of gold shimmer across his skin, illuminating him for a millisecond.  
  
“Doctor, what is that?”  
  
She pulled back as he tugged her closer, and again, out of the corner of her eye, there was a spark. She inhaled sharply as she remembered when she’d seen that particular golden light.  
  
“It’s regeneration energy,” she said, her voice breaking. She wished so badly that she could see his face.  
  
“Yep,” he said, his voice even. “Would have been a new, new, new Doctor. Well, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new Doctor.”  
  
“How have you not regenerated already?”  
  
“Well. I might have regenerated, back in an actual universe, if I hadn’t pushed it back. In the void? No artron energy, no vortex, no TARDIS, there’s literally nothing. I can’t regenerate here. And even if we were back in that other universe, I don’t think I’ve got any regenerations left.”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked quietly.  
  
There was a moment where he shifted underneath her, trailing one hand over the side of her face as though he could see through the nothingness.  
  
“I’m not the same person I used to be,” he said finally. “I’m afraid you’re going to leave me because things aren’t the way they were when we first travelled together.”  
  
“Doctor, I told you I’m never gonna leave you. What’s it going to take to convince you I mean it?”  
  
He said nothing, his breathing slow beside her.  
  
“This all - everything that’s happened since you pulled me out of London - things would have been so much easier if we had just talked to each other. If we’d told each other the truth instead of lying and hiding.”  
  
“I couldn’t, Rose. I just - it’s hard for me to explain what I did, how I felt. When I saw you - when I realized what was happening, what must have happened - I … I decided I would just change it. I knew it would cascade across the universe, knew it might cause one or both universes to collapse anyway, and I just...couldn’t bring myself to care.”  
  
“I know you care, Doctor. Even if you forgot who you are for awhile. I’ve always known.”  
  
He let out a sad little chuckle. “My own past actions tend to indicate otherwise.”  
  
“Did you ever figure out what really happened?” Rose asked, remembering what she’d seen. The ship, the desperate flight, the dying stars.  
  
“Not really. Just that you were still connected to the TARDIS and our original universe somehow, and had inadvertently destroyed the walls of that universe. And I saw that I could prevent that collapse just by removing you from that universe. So that’s what I did. I didn’t even pause to think about it.”  
  
“Do you want to know?”  
  
She felt his body tense underneath her. “You’ve seen it, then?”  
  
“Yes. I tried to tell you, I saw everything. I know it was confusing - I was confusing - I’m still pretty confused, actually.”  
  
“Me too,” the Doctor said dryly.  
  
She swallowed hard. “The other Doctor, the human one. We knew that I had a bit of telepathic ability and we tried to establish a bond.”  
  
She felt his whole body tense. “You did what?”  
  
“Don’t you give me that tone!” she snapped, and for once she was glad she couldn't see his face, because she knew he would love to make a reference to her mother. She took a deep breath and steadied her voice. “You just said you didn’t know what happened. Well, I do. The other Doctor didn’t have the TARDIS in his mind to soothe him like you did. You took her and you went back to the other universe. It was so painful for him. He tried to live with it, but I couldn’t stand to see him suffer. I wanted to help. He was you. I would have done anything to help him.”  
  
“Oh, Rose…”  
  
“But it was this me, and I still had that chunk of the Vortex hidden away inside me. When we bonded, I lost control, and the Doctor didn’t have enough of his telepathic abilities left to rein me in. The Bad Wolf came out, and since she’s linked to the TARDIS in our original universe…”  
  
The Doctor sighed. “The walls were breached and that universe started to collapse.”  
  
“Yeah. And we tried everything to reverse it, to stop it in its path. We even left Earth entirely, seeking help elsewhere. But it was no use. The Doctor was killed while helping evacuate a planet, and he didn’t regenerate. When I lost him, the Bad Wolf came out again. When I came back to myself, I tried to run. There was nothing else left to do.”  
  
“And then I found you, adrift and near death on a spaceship,” the Doctor finished.  
  
“Yep.” She shivered. “I’m glad I didn’t have to live it. I’m glad you took me out of that universe before I destroyed it by accident. As much as I can never forgive myself for what I’ve done here -”  
  
“Rose, you aren’t - “  
  
“Shut up, I’m not finished. What I’ve done here was terrible, but at least I managed to fix most of the damage. The universe is safe. All the universes are safer without me in them. I’m just sorry I couldn’t save you too.”  
  
He gathered her close, squeezing her so tight she could scarcely breathe. She expected him to tell her it was all right, to give her one of the platitudes she’d interrupted before. Instead he said, “Do you want to know when things changed for me? When I stopped being the Doctor, really.”  
  
She almost told him no, it was too much, she didn’t want to hear any more. Instead she remained silent as he told her about Wilf, and how he’d left him behind to die in order to keep the Master in his custody.  
  
“It broke something in me, that day. I had already taken so much from Donna, and I ended up taking away the only thing she had left. And I knew it was selfish, even while I was doing it.”  
  
Rose laid her hand soothingly on his thigh.  _This_  was what he'd agonized over for years? Did he not remember? Or had he never known? “No, Doctor. You’re wrong.”  
  
And then she moved her hand to his temple and showed him what she’d seen.  
  
 _A crew of emergency medics rushing in on the heels of the exiting Doctor and Master. One of them looked up, his brown eyes and shock of platinum blond hair familiar under the shimmer of a perception filter. He rushed ahead of the other medics, surreptitiously releasing a tiny canister of nanogenes above the wound on Wilfred’s chest._  
  
“He went back and - “  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“When? How?”  
  
“You’ll have to ask him.”  
  
The Doctor fell silent, seemingly stunned. She reached out to brush his surface emotions and felt how shaken he was. “You really changed him, Doctor, no matter what he’s let you think all these years. He’s different. He isn’t really...good. Not the way you are. But he’s better.” She touched his face again, letting her fingers brush over the stubble on his chin. “You’re still the Doctor. You made him better.”  
  
She snuggled into his chest and he put an arm around her again. She could practically feel his brain whirring, looking for something else to blame himself for. “There’s something I don’t understand, though,” she said carefully.  
  
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice raw like he had a lump in his throat.  
  
“Why do I feel so different here? I think back on some of the things I’ve done and I cringe. Before, I wasn’t happy with all of my actions, but I was determined to do things my way, no matter what. I have definitely been feeling strange ever since you pulled me out of Pete’s world. And now it’s like I’m just remembering what it’s like to feel normal again..”  
  
“It’s got to be your connection with the TARDIS. We can’t communicate with her from the void. I’m cut off from her as well.”  
  
She winced. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Doctor, I didn’t realize you must be in pain.”  
  
“Actually, I’m quite all right, Rose Tyler. I’ve still got a connection with you.” To emphasize his point, he sent a spectral finger down her spine and smiled as she shivered. “But I’m extremely worried about your link with the TARDIS. If the Master finds us in time, we’ll presumably go back to her. And then what’s going to happen to you?”  
  
“I...I don’t know.”  
  
“It’s like … there’s a human psychiatric term for it, a folie a deux. The madness of two.”  
  
Rose spluttered, feeling as though he’d struck uncomfortably close to the truth. A truth that had niggled at the back of her mind for years, even if she’d never let herself admit it.  
  
“Only maybe in this case it’s a folie a trois. Because I feel different, too.”  
  
He got to his feet and paced back and forth as far as the bubble would allow. Rose couldn’t see him, but she felt the bubble move underneath her.   
  
“She admitted to manipulating us,” he said.  
  
“I’m not sure she meant it in the way you’re thinking. She may have nudged us in one direction or the other, but she couldn’t be controlling our actions. She’s - I know her, Doctor. She’s a part of me. She wouldn’t do that.”  
  
“You’re probably right,” he admitted. “I’ve known her for so long, I never would have suspected she’d done something like that. Hmmm. Back to square one. Is it possible it’s something to do with this universe?” He was still pacing and she leaned back against the side of the bubble to balance herself. Her face broke into a broad smile.  
  
“What?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow. He didn’t need to see her to read her expressions.  
  
She giggled. “It’s just - a few days ago I couldn’t get you to talk to me when my life depended on it. And now we’re stuck here together and we literally have nothing to do but talk.”  
  
He sighed. “I’ve been atrocious to you, Rose, I really have been. I don’t blame you for what you did. Well, maybe a little. The dungeon, really?”  
  
“It’s your dungeon! And you threw me in it first.” She groaned, rubbing her face. The full impact of her normal emotions on these memories was like a residual hangover. Her head ached with repressed emotional trauma. “Why do you even have a dungeon?”  
  
“I usually don’t. I have a small cell where I can keep a prisoner if need be. A few times I’ve brought someone aboard who I couldn’t allow to roam freely, but the cell was just a regular room with a disappearing door. When I brought the Master on board, she redecorated the cell and made it look like a dungeon. Whenever he’s around she still keeps it in dungeon form. I think she might be trying to tell him something.”  
  
Rose snickered, remembering the conversation between the Master and the TARDIS. “She had a few choice words for him.”  
  
“I would have liked to have heard them,” the Doctor said, amused.  
  
She laughed again, then tried to take a deep breath and felt a moment of panic as her lungs couldn’t extract enough oxygen. She gagged and retched, feeling in agonizing detail as the alveoli in her lungs reached for oxygen and found carbon dioxide in its stead. The Doctor cuddled her closer. “Sshhhh. Don’t breathe so hard. Slow your heart rate.”  
  
Rose nodded and closed her eyes to concentrate out of habit. Gradually her heart slowed and her lungs stopped screaming. “I guess we should stay quiet.”  
  
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s just...enjoy each other’s company.”  
  
  
****  
  
Two hours later, Rose was asleep, her head in his lap and her breathing shallow with what little oxygen remained. At least he thought she was asleep and not unconscious. He had activated his respiratory bypass to let her have what little air was left. It tasted stale, but thus far it was still keeping her alive. He didn’t want to know when her heart stopped beating. If he was lucky, he’d lose consciousness himself before that happened.  
  
He stroked her hair slowly, pushing it out of her face so he could trail his fingers over her skin. He couldn’t see her, but he knew those beloved features well. He let his mind memorize them one last time. Petite nose, strong wide mouth, whiskey eyes. His beautiful golden girl. He was glad they’d finally properly talked to each other.   
  
The familiar whirring of his TARDIS filled the bubble.  
  
He whipped his head around, convinced he was hallucinating. The lack of air was finally getting to him. There was no way his TARDIS could be here. Nobody but him could fly her. He’d taken every precaution he could think of after the Master had mutilated her.  
  
But there, in front of him, was the box; its shape dim with only the small bulb on top to provide light. As she materialized in front of him, he felt her familiar presence fill his mind.  
  
“Rose! Rose! Wake up!” He shook her gently.  
  
She mumbled groggily and pushed at him. She’d never been a morning person. “My head hurts,” she muttered.  
  
“Rose Tyler, open your eyes right now and tell me if you’re seeing what I’m seeing.”  
  
“But ‘s dark, can’t see nothing,” she slurred, but she managed to pull one eye open. Abruptly she opened them both wide, staring at the TARDIS with her mouth open. “How did she get here?”  
  
“I don’t know,” the Doctor admitted. “I’m just glad she did.”  
  
After a moment, the TARDIS doors opened, emitting the green glow he knew so well. Then a hand reached out to pull them in. Not the hand he expected, clean but callused from so much time spent tinkering on his TARDIS.  
  
A petite hand with slender fingers.


End file.
